Website update

General: The major change should by now be obvious: a completely new navigation menu. Whilst the old one was perfectly functional and I liked the context-sensitive side navigation, it did look rather dated. Hence it's a new javascript-driven menu constructed using the excellent CoffeeCup DHTML Menu Builder, and this has enabled (indeed forced) me to finally break free from Microsoft Front Page. This has now highlighted a shed-load of little inconsistencies caused by using a WYSIWYG editor without studying the code: stretched images; unwanted fixed heights for table elements; misuse of spaces in the name attributes of anchor tags; and others, I'm sure, besides. These are gradually getting fixed to improve both form and functionality of the whole site.

Books: new Poem of the Month.

Drink: I received an e-mail from the webmaster of a rather good absinthe site (see below), so I'm tying the Drink of the Month in with this: La Fée Verte absinthe, with 4 original recipes.

Food: Picnic time (again!) for Recipe of the Month - a collection put together for one we enjoyed just recently.

Fractals: new Fractal of the Month, plus a new set of previews in the 'mini-gallery' as a taster of my latest work at deviantART.

Freeware: new program reviews, the founder of the feast (well, menu!), CoffeeCup DHTML Menu Builder plus the excellent image management software Picasa. And I've begun the process of improving the external links here by adding a standard button for visiting the devloper's website. In adding these, all links have been checked for both validity and current software status - non-freeware has been removed.

Garden: new Garden Tip and a further chapter in the major new project, 'A Year at Padley Wood' - this month, it's High Summer.

Links: this month, Spotlight on (usually a site new to me, but could be an old favourite):

Comprehensive historical coverage of all things absinthe with an opportunity to purchase the associated paraphernalia.