Author: Tom Coates

As I experience yet another entirely frustrating battle with page rendering on Netscape, I am forced to agree (for a moment at least) with Jakob Nielsen: Frames Suck Most of the Time.

A while ago I was looking for a site that could simulate how sites would look in other browsers. Well thanks to a co-worker at Avondi, I’ve found one. The only problem is you have to pay them up to $120 a year for the privilege. If I had that much spare cash at the moment, however, I’d do it in a heartbeat – I’ve watched it in action, and it’s a sweet piece of online kit. Designing cross-browser and platform is tricky enough if you are using a PC, but when you design on a Mac, something like this would be an absolute life-saver.

As the song says, “Wouldn’t a smarter man, simply walk away?”

Excerpts from ‘My Big Gay Life’ (6): So you’re in a shop and you see a magazine, and on the cover is some guy that you wanted to be involved with. And you say to yourself, Good Christ. And you send them a text message which reads, Good Christ. And you take the magazine into a bar and order a coke. And you sit down and open the magazine. And then you put the coke down, feel slightly weird, leave the bar, get on a tube and go home.

Grant Morrison, personal god of mine, and my first and only hero, is shortly to take over the writing of the world’s biggest selling comic-book, the X-men. For those of you who promise not to think me a completely ridiculous geek, here (along with some discussion) are some scans of the first two pages.

[After Jason] I’ve submitted a word (‘unsightful’) to the pseudodictionary. Have you?

This is possibly the least helpful article on dealing with a gay teenager that I have ever read. And I can only hope and pray that in ten or twenty years time, comments like “In truth, no parent wishes for a gay child. Who would want their son or daughter to follow a lifestyle that invites ridicule, heartache and prevents grandchildren!” will be considered hopelessly backwards and insulting by all reasonable people.

Excerpts from ‘My Big Gay Life’ (5) So you think you’re angry with Big for the way the evening ended the other day, and you’d chucked him a very brief e-mail designed to assess the lines of communication, to which there had been no reply. So after a conversation with a friend, you decide that what you really want to do is give him a quick ring. So you do. And he hangs up on you. Which makes you think, what the hell? So you sit there for a minute being puzzled and slightly irritable, before deciding to be magnanimous. So you send a text message saying: ‘Fair enough. See you around sometime”. And then he rings up immediately. His dog is playing in the river, and he’s all cheery. What exactly does one say in this situation?

If someone said that they were going away for a week, but that they’d give you a ring once they’d got back, at what stage can one start legitimately getting slightly narked? Your answers please!

I have a quandary. In my flat, we have (to date) four rules of life. Two of these rules (1 and 4) this evening appear to be in direct opposition with one another. The situation is that I might have to go out for a drink with a friend in central London. The rules are as follows: 1) Inside Good, Outside Bad. 2) Everyone’s a **** (i) Men are particularly ****s. 3) Buffy is life. 4) Vodka is our friend. What shall I do? [You have until 9pm GMT to answer this question.]