Well, we're PARTWAY there, anyhow. There was a bug whereby in IE and some other browsers, there was a gap between the title image and the menu. This SEEMS to just have been an error with dealing with the PHP include, from what I can tell. So, rather than do a PHP include for the top title (which sucks, because with includes I can change one file and it automatically updates everything) I've just changed it back to a simple IMG tag. Looks fine in IE now... dunno about Opera. Safari users, I'm still working on you. The reason the background of certain parts of the page looks darker is because Safari apparently has problems with PNG gamma, which is amazingly odd, since those PNG files have the gamma info stripped out. I really don't know what I can do to fix this. There are a few other Safari errors, but we'll work them out one at a time.

I've realized after looking at things that the page looks a bit bare when there's no tower ad showing (it looks much more balanced with it). I'm not intending to waste space... and that looks really stupid without the tower there. I may find something to fill the space when I don't have a tower ad up, and I'll be adding in my own tower ads from time to time as well. A note to the people using 800x600 who complain that they have to scroll now: I'm sorry. I really am. But I've got a lot of stuff I'm going to be displaying in the future, and 800 pixels just isn't enough space to do it in. 800x600 is the new 640x480, unfortunately.

The characters link now works in the JS menu. Also, I've added a DOCTYPE to the page, as well as changing the encoding away from Shift-JIS. (WHY dreamweaver was using that as a default, I'll never know.) The one change that I think is extremely positive, and thanks to Michiel for suggesting it, is that the pages are now compressed with GZIP, and load a good deal faster than they used to. It's just the HTML, but hey... it works.

In response to the people who tell me "need to stop using tables, switch to CSS layout", i say, GREAT! Okay! I'd love to! TELL ME HOW. I can't seem to find any resources for the CSS novice that give instructions on how to switch away from table-based thinking to a CSS streamlined approach. I know nothing of this CSS of which you speak, other than the basics of a stylesheet. Help me out, peeps. :D

That's all for now. Got too many errands to run. :D

Before you get all excited, I'm still running it. You haven't gotten rid of me just yet. :)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes upon the new, fully functional Real Life website! I've probably put more work into getting this website functional than any other layout prior to it, and I still have a whole crapload of work left to do, too. Consider, for example, what happens when you go back by a comic or two. Notice the rants? Yeah, that needs fixing. Basically, I need to convert over the old rant style to the new one. This rant style has the actual rant window built into each post, so when I post another rant, it shows up in a completely seperate "bubble". Cool stuff.

SO! Let me take a brief moment to go over the changes that have been made, aside from the glaringly obvious. :D First off, and most importantly to me, the site has been shaved down from 200K per pageload, NOT counting the comic, (OUCH) to just a hair under 100K. It's still not stellar, but that means the page should load a good deal quicker. Not to mention there are only 24 HTTP requests now, instead of 36. The page has, as you can see, been modified to be native to a 1024x768 desktop environment. Trust me, it shows more when the tower ad is up. Those of you who have Javascript enabled will notice the spiffy new menu system, which makes navigation around the site much easier, and those of you without javascript will, in it's place, see a text-based navigation setup that gives you the same amount of functionality. I toldja I'd come up with a solution, didn't i? :)

I've made the banner display a bit nicer, and cleaned up some wasted space issues I had near the top. All the comic links I used to have lined up to the left of the strip are now located in the javascript menu, and I've added and subtracted links where necessary. One of the links I added is to Shaw Island, which is a comic by Zach Stroum. Zach has been an online cartoonist for well over 5 years now, his first strip being EtherLife. He and Scott Kurtz were essentially the catalysts that made me get into webcomics in the first place, and I have been long overdue in returning the favor. He's on break this week, but will return next week to a M-W-F schedule. Zach's a great guy, and the comic is highly enjoyable. I'd suggest starting from the beginning if you get a chance. :)

And yes, I notice the huge number of pages here that have nothing but filler crap. It can't really be avoided at the moment. I was trying to hold off till I got everything in place, but I figured it was better to just jump in feet first, and I'll slowly swim back to shore at my own pace.

Anyhow, that's about it for now. I've neglected my work for long enough today. I hope you like the layout as much as I do. I do realize, however, that I am far from perfect. I'm sure this is broken on someone's browser/computer/whatever. If that is the case, I urge you to send me an e-mail with the browser you're using, and a screenshot of the problem if at all possible. Also, for the web page geeks out there, if you could take a look at the source and find a way to streamline things further, by all means, do so. I want this baby running like greased lightning. :)

This is why I hate site redesigns. :P

We already have our first problem, and it's one I have no idea how to solve. You will notice on our flash banner ads, when the drop-down menus show up, they do so BEHIND the damned ad. Anyone know how to force something like this to show up as far to the front of the page as possible?

Also, I notice the page looks like ass in Safari. Why can't everyone make a browser as nice as FireFox, huh? Anyone with the know-how, help me out. I can't very well test Safari, unfortunately.