I recall the days when complicated Javascript or Flash programming was required to produce a decent-looking dropdown menu. But these menus were often less reliable, had more errors, and were difficult to customize/use. It was time consuming and slow.

CSS Comes Along

With the advancement of the application of CSS usage, the dropdown menu market slowly evolved. The dependency on Javascript slowly reduced, and there was more emphasis on the CSS, which mean that the customization of the style/design was easier, AND it took less resources and ran faster. Also to note was that with the use of CSS, cross-browser applicability went up as well.

For many different projects, I experimented with all sorts of dropdowns. Sometimes I simply settled for less, as it was just too time-consuming to find the right one, and to test these things after modification was a very lengthy process. I needed to check it on FF, IE, and now IE7 has brought some more concerns…

Today I would like to announce that, as a well-seasoned and experienced web designer/coder, that I have found the best CSS dropdown menu I could find out there which you can find here. I have applied this menu to this new website that I am working on, and it works great on IE6, IE7, and FF2. Here is why I like this CSS dropdown code :

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How many of you guys reading this blog have actually purchased a copy of Photoshop, Illustrator, or Windows XP? Well, I own a legal copy of Windows XP Home Edition because my Toshiba laptop came with it, and the license price is included in my retail purchase. Other than that, honestly, how many people actually buy them?

With the pricing of the software, it’s more or less impossible for most freelance designers/developers (like me) to purchase the software. It’s too much of a burden, especially if you consider that they come up with a new version every 2 years or so, or even less. The Adobe Creative Suite 2 Premium bundle costs $1,199.00 US.

I recall something that Bill Gates said about the issue of piracy of Windows 98 a few years back. The piracy situation was pretty bad in South-East Asia (and the rest of the world) and he did not seem to mind. I can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something to the effect of “I don’t mind them using my software for free as long as they are using it. I understand they cannot afford the price, especially in this part of the world.”

Let me interpret that statement.

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One day I went to clean up my folders, and I got to this location : My Documents >> My Received Files.

Oh my God waht a mess. That’s the folder where all your file transmissions from MSN comes into. And since that folder is rarely visible unless you navigate to that section, and because most of the transmissions are simple pictures and what not that you click and open from your convo window and forget about, it just piles up and up!

Also any other downloading areas such as the “Shared Items” folder (which Limewire designates by default for all downloaded files) and “My Downloads” (which I believe was created by Download Accelerator Pro) end up in the same fate. And any other software that download things for you always have their own designated folders somewhere.

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The facebook toolbar for firefox is available here. As I mentioned in my previous post about how I think Facebook is the winning community website on the web right now, I downloaded this add-on right away. So far, this add-on is available only on Firfox, and the only thing that is available for IE is the facebook search pane.
Basically the facebook toolbar integrates many of the features you commonly use on Facebook so that you have access to them right away without having to go through the facebook website. And it also gives you notifications of activities on your facebook account.

I will do a quick review of this toolbar, after having used it for nearly 2 weeks now.

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Right now I run a Toshiba Satellite laptop that i bought about a year and few months ago. It’s a 17″ beast, with 1.7 ghz Centrino, and I upgraded the RAM to 1.5 GB (to do graphic editing, 512 MB is not enough) and it has a generic 128 MB graphic card in it (a non 3D type). 80 GB Hard Drive. Don’t get me wrong here - I have no problem with the hardware by Toshiba. Toshiba, in my opinion, makes some of the best laptops, but Windows XP has its limitations when it comes to stability.

Now, it runs off Windows XP (obviously) and we all know about the unstabilities of this. Because I am a web developer, and a techy geek who likes to try out software and do a lot of different things off my computer other than just word processing, I do end up messing up my computer. Most of the times I just use the system restore function, but often, it does not seem to be enough. Ever. Every 3 months, on average, I end up backing up all my files on to my 250 GB external hard drive, and I toss in the Toshiba recovery CD which erases everything on my hard drive and resets everything to factory settings.

Here are few of the symptoms I’m suffering right now :

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