Talk about sending so humor my way just at the right time. My friend Allen and I are heavy users of del.icio.us. He happened to use the 'from' feature to send me an image that not only made me start laughing out loud, but depicts exactly my struggle with web design. I'll share that in a moment, but let's focus for a second on the pains of being a web designer.

It just so happens that at least once, usually more frequently, per day I'm complaining about designing my website so that it's compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari. I guess it's more than a complaint, it's a 10-minute violent rant on why I wish I could put a hole through my computer. Basically, I only design for these three browsers because that's about all I have time for.

Bonus question: What browser do you think gives me the biggest headache?

Anyway, I like to complain about browser compatibility issues. Why can't all browsers just follow standards and be the same. Actually, I do sympathize with developers because designing a browser and making every website render the same across browsers is no easy task. However, that doesn't stop me from tossing out four-letter words and other complaints about the previous night when I was up till 3am mucking with CSS instead of sleeping.

If you were able to answer the bonus question, hopefully the response was Internet Explorer. Take a look at the following picture and please note the large yellow section that is my life most of the time at 3am.

So after getting the little guy working in Internet Explorer, I'm usually a bit cranky the next day. When I then start discussing my previous night's adventures with a friend, here's how the conversations usually flow.

Me: Man, I am sooo tired.

Friend: Another night of web design, huh. How's your best friend, IE, doing?

Me: Don't ask man, I hate all browsers, they all suck.

Friend: Chuckle, grin, finger pointing.

Me: I had everything working in Safari and Firefox and it was perfect. Then I ask for 'feedback' and Jason says...dude, this looks horrible in IE.

Friend: More chuckling...

Me: Seriously dude, why can't browsers just do the right thing? It's 9:00pm and I have everything looking clean. Then, I get a report of someone telling me it renders horribly in IE. Then, next thing you know, it's 6:00am, birds are chirping, sun is coming up, and I'm just finding the two lines of CSS code that make all the difference.

Me: Rubs eyes, grabs Mountain Dew, chugs.

So needless to say, it's quite a struggle making websites render properly across multiple browsers. I'm picking on IE here because it usually is the browser causing the most headaches, but even Safari and Firefox don't always do the same things. Anyway, thanks to Allen for adding some entertaining humor to my night.