Say goodbye to the DHTML collapsible outline navbar on TruerWords: I've scrapped it. It was fun to write, easy to maintain, and an interesting demonstration of cross-browser DHTML... but that's really not the point of a site's primary navigation bar!

Unfortunately, it was also difficult to use, because it was slowing the site down too much. Every page needed to load and process an extra three javascripts before the page could actually be used, and some marginal browsers (like Opera) weren't compatible with the javascript.

The final straw was an update to two layers of the code (xbStyle.js and ua.js) from Netscape that's adding yet another separate script file to the mix... so the pages would have loaded even slower. It's fine for web-application interfaces, but when people come to a site like this and they just want to browse, waiting five or ten seconds for every page to load is unacceptable.

I'm still going to be involved in the project with Netscape, and I'm still going to use it in some places, but not as the primary navigation.

I am, of course, still using some fancy-shmancy HTML. This time it degrades very nicely for every browser I've seen, so some of my 'pals' like Steve Ivy won't be denied entry.

What do you think of the new navbar? You don't have to say you like it, unless you really do. Tell me what you think!

This morning, my Mom was smart enough to ask me privately if the sulfnbk.exe virus warning email is a hoax or not.

In this she was unique. Almost everybody else in the world has sent the virus warning to me today, believing that it's true. One that I received, from a friend in New Hampshire, was also sent to hundreds of other people at the same time.

It's embarrassing! These people have been using the net for well over a year, they should know better.

Admittedly, this virus warning (actually, the email is the virus) is more clever than most (and more clever than my friends, sadly). The author chose a file that's contained in virtually every installation of Windows, but which almost no one has ever heard of (there are hundreds, even thousands, of such files). Then he wrote an email telling people that it's a virus, how to find it, and how to delete it.

Then, of course, he added the obligatory, "Send this email to everyone in your address book! Protect your friends!" People fall for this every stinking time. It's maddening!

Remember, the virus is the email!