ok, so you probably heard about the IE7 beta, you can get that here Internet Explorer 7 Beta 3 for Windows XP SP2. (thanks foo)

Haven’t tried it out myself yet, gonna download it. It’s just that I need IE6 to check CSS on sites I develop. Guess I’ll have to drag my laptop into the office.
Also for those who are more daring, an alpha of the new Firefox 2 is out also. Get that here Bon Echo Alpha 2 Milestone

I wasn’t going to post anything regarding the Slashdot.org redesign contest. I figured everyone in the know, already knew. Seems like every design related blog had already posted information regarding the contest.

Well, it seems now the BBC has announced their version of the “Reboot” contest. Only this time they are not going to actually use the winning design as their final one.

“I think it’s worth pointing out from the very beginning that we are not asking people to provide million £ rebranding for us. Indeed we are NOT going to use or commission any designs for the final front page. Yes, we will turn the winning design into the homepage for a day – but that’s as a prize and as recognition for the winning producer’s efforts (and if they really don’t want us to, then we won’t). “

They must have seen the harsh words from many a professional designer who posted to Slashdot about their own contest. Seems that many think that a $4500 laptop is a bit on the lowside of the payment scale for a redesign of such a high traffic site as Slashdot. Slashdot doesn’t even try to defend this. I guess the so-called prestige of having redesigned Slashdot should be reward enough.

Sorry, but no thanks.

If you are new to the whole “css layout replace your tables keep presentation and content seperate” movement, Alessandro Fulciniti has a page set up to help.

The main goal of the article was getting the maximum number of layouts based on the same markup, each with valid CSS and HTML, without hacks nor workaround and a good cross-browser compatibility. The result is a set of 40 layouts that we’ve thought worth sharing

So here for the css challenged is Layout Gala. With 40 layouts, there’s bound to be one to please your tastes.

If you’ve been to MySpace, you have seen some of the worst the web has to offer. I have some friends who had asked me about a cleaner looking alternative to all the crap that is MySpace. So I started investigating how it was put together, how hard was it gonna be to clean up the toxic waste that was MySpace design.

I then stumbled on Mike Davidsons blog. Mike has painstakingly deciphered MySpace and its infinite table tags and come up with a nice piece of css you can use to clean your own MySpace page.

How to hack your way to a more tasteful MySpace profile. Hopefully, my many hours of weeding will save you from having to fully examine the bowels of this beast. I’m providing my CSS file, fully commented, along with image files to use as templates for your own profiles. I do ask that you don’t use my exact theme but hopefully I’m providing you enough so that a few minutes in Photoshop is all you need to produce something you’re proud of.

I was able to make this page close to the look and feel of designreverb.com. If you are into MySpace, it might be something worth checking out.