About a week ago, my dad brought home Microsoft Office 2007, and we noticed that the newsletter looked terrible in the new version of Microsoft Outlook (this is Microsoft’s email reading program). I did a little bit of research and found out that Microsoft had basically discontinued support for CSS.
Now, to most of you that doesn’t mean anything, but to someone who is a web-developer this came as quite a shock. You don’t need to know what CSS is, just know that it is a kind of computer standard that web developers have been using for, oh at least a decade. Now, I can’t say I am overly surprised that Microsoft has done this. They tend to do what ever they want without regard for the rest of the world. Developers have been struggling for years to make web pages that follow Web Standards and also display well in Microsoft’s web browser (Internet Explorer).
So what does all this have to do with our newsletter? Well it used to be based around this CSS stuff, but since more and more people are migrating to the newer version of office, and office no longer supports basic CSS, we had to do something. I was forced to go back to the ancient way of designing the newsletter, by using tables (no, not the kind in your dining room).
The good news is that it prompted me to update the look a little bit. I made a new shiny “glass” header for the newsletter and I decided to move the navigation off to the side where it made more sense. I hope you like the new layout. If you have any comments or suggestions feel free to drop me a note.
If you aren’t currently receiving our newsletters you may sign up for them on our homepage, or by sending an e-mail with the word “subscribe” in the subject line to newslist@alabu.com. We send them out once a month, and sometimes they have coupons or other treats in them.
H.M.