When Dean Hachamovitch demonstrated in December that the forthcoming Internet Explorer 8 browser passed the Acid2 test in standards mode, there were calls for Microsoft to clarify if “standards mode” was the default setting for IE8. Last week it was announced on A List Apart and the Internet Explorer blog that IE8 will render pages using an IE7-level rendering engine by default, and that web developers must opt-in to take advantage of the new Acid2-compliant rendering mode.

Basecamp is the grandaddy of online project management applications, but I recently discovered that its little brother Backpack can also hold its own as a project management tool.

If you’ve read any web design blogs during the past week you will no doubt be aware of the hornet’s nest that has been stirred up by Opera’s antitrust complaint against Microsoft. The issues at stake go well beyond Opera’s attempt to put a dent in Internet Explorer’s market share, and commentators have been quick to point out the ramifications for web standards, and the organizations that govern them.

Over at roScripts there is a nice tutorial explaining how to modify my FormBuilder PHP class so that validation is performed unobtrusively using AJAX. Check it out.

So you might have noticed it’s been quite a while since I last posted on this blog. There are a couple of reasons for the hiatus, but foremost is the fact that I’ve gotten back into producing music again. By comparison, spending my spare time blogging about my job seems kind of spirit sapping. However I don’t want to throw in the towel just like that. I intend to keep posting articles to Pixel Acres, but with less regularity. Hopefully the reduction in quantity will also equate to an increase in quality. I won’t be tripping over myself to make sure I post to Pixel Acres every single week, and will only write on topics that get me fired up. Basically I no longer want to feel like a slave to my blog – after all I started Pixel Acres because I thought it would be fun, not a chore. I hope that my regular readers (if I still have any left!) will stick around to see what I come up with.

Remember the Max Headroom pilot, in which hyper-fast subliminal advertisements called ‘blip-verts’ caused viewers’ heads to explode? Well, that’s how I feel after absorbing 5000 web 2.0 logos in 333 seconds. Anyone get the feeling the world might have enough web apps already?

There’s an interview with me over at designinterviews.com where I answer questions about my background, the challenges of freelancing, and my client work. The site also features interviews with luminaries like Andy Clarke and Mark Boulton, which are definitely worth reading.

Today is the first anniversary of Pixel Acres’ launch. Actually, in my time zone the auspicious event occurred yesterday, but lets not bring the international dateline into this… In any case, my first blogging anniversary seems like an occasion worth marking.

In a head-to-head battle with the Apple iPhone, Opera recently announced the beta version of their Opera Mini 4 browser. For those not familiar with Opera Mini, it is a very popular free web browser for mobile devices, and works with any modern mobile phone. To help woo consumers Opera are offering a web-based simulator, which replicates exactly the functionality of the mobile browser.

After a quick play with Safari 3 beta on a Mac, I am happy to report that the infamous Safari Flash “flicker” bug has been fixed. If you are a Safari user then I’m sure you have encountered this bug before – it occurs when HTML content containing hover effects appears over Flash, such as when a dropdown menu overlaps a Flash movie embedded further down the page.