Simple CSS 100% Height and Width!

My only question is: HOW THE HELL DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS?

Here's what happened. My earlier blog post about the 100% width absolute background element turns out was totally wrong. IE7< was glitching on this, causing a width of closer to 130%. Digging around the internet for an explanation for this bug(?), I came across this helpful post on A List Apart: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/conflictingabsolutepositions/

Basically, it mentions that some browsers don't play nicely when you mix percentage widths and fixed widths together on the same page. But that's not the important part - what is, is the solution it provided.

Take a div. Position it absolutely. Now give it left:0 and right:0 positioning. What is your first instinct will be the result? Mine was that it would default to the position which is declared lower in the style declaration. But the reality is much much sweeter. What you are in fact indicating is that the left most corner of the div should be at left:0, and the right most corner of the div should be at right:0. The result? 100% width. Now you may be thinking, can the same thing possibly apply to height? Guess what.....IT DOES.

The catch - it doesn't work in IE5 or IE6, and there is a teeny glitch in Opera. However, the List Apart article provides some work arounds for the IE issues. And if you or your development company has gone the way we have, as well as many other large internet presences, you can forget IE5 and 6 altogether these days, instead recommending your user to upgrade.

*waiting for the flaming from that comment. Oh wait, no one reads this blog. Phew.*

Here's my sample if you want to see it in action:

http://www.sugarandsalts.com/100percentbaby

PHP ini_get

A somewhat useful function in PHP - ini_get(string $varname). Useful for troubleshooting, would have come in handy for me once or twice in the past when trying to prove to a server admin that globals were on or off. IE:

echo 'register_globals = ' . ini_get('register_globals') . "\n";

Returns something like:

register_globals = 0

Read the PHP Manual entry for more details.

Google Apps Email Pop Issues

I have a client account set up which will not connect to the incoming gmail server. I have tried deleting the account and setting it up again, as well as changing the password.

It basically keeps asking for the password over and over again when Testing the Account settings/checking mail, as if the password were incorrect, despite accepting that password just fine for outgoing/smtp as well as for the webmail interface.

I saw a post about resetting CAPTCHA here:http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-POP-and-IMAP-en/browse_thread/thread/81c1bc268ef7660a?fwc=1 and tried that as well, which also did not solve the problem.

Currently looking for the answer still - in the meantime I ended up creating a new mail account, forwarding the mail through Gmail's webmail interface, and simply receiving the email from this new account.