Internet Explorer Rant

I love the basic idea of HTML, a language that isn't an exact layout language, but a markup language. Because of this, I tend to do fairly simple page layouts. A couple days ago, I was working on the HTML to my personal site, and my gf tells me that "making sure it works on Netscape 2" is no longer a valid reason to not use complicated layouts.

I hate cluttered layouts, but to break the pattern I put together a nice border type thing for it. You can check it out. But beware, if you have Internet Explorer for Windows. The layout is broken as far as that's concerned right now.

When I started the table, I drew it out on my whiteboard, with the dimensions that it'd need, and I wrote out the code (by hand, onto the board) to make the exact table I needed. I typed it in, and onto my Safari window appeared exactly what I wanted.

I tried it in MSIE for the Mac. It worked fine.

So, I asked the gf to have a look at it. She's on Windows XP.

And the layout is broken.

The HTML is just fine, and it renders on all of the browsers on my Mac. I specify the exact number of pixels wide and high some cells should be, so that I can let the browser render it properly with a lower bandwidth image. In theory, it's nicely put together.

So why does IE feel the need to trash it? I know it's the most used browser out there, but how does that give it an excuse to trample over standards.

Also, any comments on the site design, the usability, and any rendering errors on browsers either than MSIE for Windows will be appreciated. Thanks.

-Bob