So, the first beta of IE8 is out... Looks no different to IE7 but apparently it passed the acid test and it's standards compliant!1!11 WOW!!1! So obviously I had to try it and review it just like I did for IE7.

Well first of all I can't spot any of the old CSS bugs (OMG I can't have been looking properly, seriously) but there are a few general bugs. If you view this site in it, the title of the page or blog entry kind of jumps when you hover over the navigation. Also, dropdown menus can't seem to decide whether they are as wide as the text inside them or as wide as the CSS says they should be. It seems if you click the menu, it is the correct width (i.e. that of the CSS) but if you click inside another field, it goes back to the width of the text inside.

Other than that, I couldn't find anything majorly wrong. I highly doubt I tested it fully, but still: could this be the end of IE hacks and having to make a separate stylesheet for IE because it interprets everything differently? Well, that certainly seems like an exciting prospect. The only thing I wonder is why Microsoft haven't done it before now.

Oh, and it has a handy "emulate IE7" button which is good only really for cross-browser checking... Can't easily install more than one IE on a computer so that's kind of useful. :P

That's right, new theme. I couldn't sleep last night so I spent most of my time making this, after fighting another potential design for the best part of a month. This is pretty generic for me, and I wanted to get into fluid layouts without nasty wrapping going on when the font size is increased... But alas, it was not to be. You'd think, since I make these sorts of layouts all the time (see the last 6 themes - they're all pretty much the same), that I would be able to churn them out in about 5 minutes, wouldn't you? Wrong, it took me almost 6 hours just to tweak everything and get it right. That said, the tabs are wonky in Firefox, hacked together in IE and I didn't realise they were overlapping the sidebar, so I had to move it down a little so that would no longer happen (yes, that's why that ugly white gap is there). The tabs and the titling all wrap in a really nasty way if you increase the font size, the layout isn't fluid, blah blah blah. Must get out of uncreative rut.

The photo is my own, from a day trip I went on recently. I'm really rather proud of it :D

My final year of University starts soon. I'm not entirely sure how soon since I haven't been given many details (I've got a form that says "pay your fees on [date] or else" but that's it...), but I sort of can't wait. I am so bored here at home with nothing to do. I'm sure I will hate it the moment it starts (ARGH ONLY 6 MONTHS TO DO THE DISSERTATION! ARGH ARGH ARGH *Panic*) but at the moment I hate being bored so who knows.

New theme. Doesn't work properly in IE *cough*use a better browser*cough* (IE issue fixed, but that's no excuse for still using it! Upgrade! - Thanks Jenny). Photos used with permission from Jem.

I start my work placement tomorrow, and am not in bed (should've gone at least two hours ago). Instead trying to fix this layout in IE, but of course IE's a piece of poo and won't listen to anything I tell it. Grrrrr. Still have a lot to do before bed. *Sigh* Lots of stuff needs fixing here, so don't complain about things not working. I'll do it tomorrow.

PS: Happy birthday Mum!