I was doing some testing, and I noticed that this page is broken on Internet Explorer – the BlogAds are pushed below the main content section on the sidebar. Apparently the BlogAds code is causing the problem, which is rather annoying (and which probably explains why they were getting such low levels of traffic).
Of course, all this is happening because the rendering engine of Internet Explorer is as stable as Courtney Love on speed. It doesn’t parse CSS correctly, it barfs on code entirely at random, and it can’t display nifty things like transparent PNGs.
In short, IE sucks. Hard.
So, please, please, please, get rid of IE and run a more sensible browser like Mozilla Firefox – it’s free, easy to use, and is faster at fetching and rendering pages. It blocks popups, has a nice download manager, a search toolbar, makes your teeth brighter, and makes you irresistably sexually attractive to supermodels. (Well, it may not do the last two, but it does everything else, and more.)
I know I mention this repeatedly, but it bears repeating. Ditch IE, and get a browser that doesn’t suck, is considerably faster, and won’t fill your computer with spyware and popups. Plus, it will give you good karma with web designers…
(Oh, and when I get a chance I’ll be revamping the code for the BlogAds to not only work with IE, but comply better with the site’s standards-compliant design…)
UPDATE: OK, now that I’ve spent a good hour rewriting the code to BlogAds (hopefully I didn’t break anything!), the ads display in IE as they were intended. Why BlogAds chooses to use tables for layout is beyond me – especially when they’re not at all necessary. The downside of this is that I’ll have to manually update the code on my end with every new ad unless I can convince BlogAds to use the tableless way of doing things. Still, it’s better than having the ads break the layout of the page in IE like they were.
Mozilla Firefox is awsome. I’m glad I converted… (unfortunately, I can’t get the Augie CS team to do the same…) It’s easily the fastest browser I’ve seen since Opera, and really, really stable. Highly recommended.
I’ll consider switching, maybe, but I’m not convinced yet. Every time I’ve tried another browser, I quickly discover that several sites don’t display properly anymore. I even ditched Mozilla the last time I tried it because it was so agonizingly slow.
Firefox struck me as considerably faster than standard Mozilla… it’s a pretty light weight browser. I haven’t hit a single site that has displayed improperly on it- pretty impressive, given how many sites I visit. And it’s only about 6 megs, so it’s worth a look.