I had a stint at fixed-width pages earlier this year, but finally decided I didn't like them. They were hard to maintain, and I kept postponing updates (already few and far between) because of that. So it's back to simpler table-based layouts, with better use of styles (CSS) and templates. We'll see...

The new pages are variable-width, but they should be suited for displays from 800*600 (with some vertical scrolling) upwards (1024 and 1200 -pixel widths are OK). All of them are tested with current versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer (the majority of the Windows user base), and recent (Windows) builds of Mozilla.

Of course, 640*480 and below (as with PDAs) are still out of the question. Also, some HTML tags and styles may be rendered differently by other browsers and on different platforms, but I hope this is at least an improvement. I sincerely wish I could put up the "Optimized for ANY browser" banner on my home page and I support that attitude. But it would be dishonest for me to do it knowing that my code is probably not HTML 4.0-compliant or browser-neutral.

On the other hand, these are amateur personal pages. I am not a professional Web designer and claim no expertise ; I do not have the time or resources to check on all the details that ideally should be. Maybe if one day the Internet powers-that-be and the software industry get their act together, life will be easier for the hobbyist.

Meanwhile, if some really criminal code really breaks down the entire user experience (and the browser) of some really helpful people, I am entirely willing to fix it -- provided I am told what the problem is, and what to do.

If you suspect that you are not seeing what was intended, here is a screenshot (750*630, 37 KB) to show what a typical page should look like...