They were troubled times--times of strife and turmoil, man against man, browser against browser. Into this chaos of lawlessness, brutality and disregard for web standards, stepped a new contender. Sleek and powerful in a case of shining armor, the champion strode onto the field of battle bearing a new and mighty weapon that made strong Windows men quake and PC women swoon. Parallel, he called it, and fascinated, the people flocked to him... After over 10 years of staunchly defending the ruling party, I am switching sides. Yes, that's right. I'm going over to the macrebels. Don't bother to try to talk me out of it. It's no use. Call me a traitor. Tell me I've been seduced by a handsome case and dubious technology. I've heard it all. My mind's made up. I've put in my order.

When I first started working on the web, it was not only possible but common to build an entire website by yourself, from back end to front end. Even promotion. We called ourselves webmasters because we had mastered (or more often, just did) everything. The back end was Javascript or Perl because that's what was available; the front end was table-based HTML; and promotion meant submitting to the 10 or 15 new search engines eager for links.

The inevitable has happened. Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 late last week. This is the final step before Microsoft pushes IE7 on an unsuspecting public... I mean, makes IE7 publicly available. No other release candidates are planned.

One of the handiest "tricks" I've come across is having a layout template library at your fingertips. It's taken me a while to build mine, but now I have a tried-and-true layout for most of the common designs. It makes life a lot easier if you can grab a layout "skeleton," knowing that it will work for the design and won't present you with nasty little surprises halfway through.

Every once in a while it suddenly hits me that I have too many computers in my life. This week has been one of those moments. So to speak. My über fast Dell desktop at work is my newest darling, but it's a bit heavy to lug into meetings and on a plane. I had no choice. I had to renege on our delicately haggled agreement and swipe back the Toshiba laptop I'd handed down to my husband. In exchange I set him up on The Big Monster, the custom-built PC I got last fall when I was still doing freelance work and that practically blows back your hair when you push the "on" button.