Oh you didn't know little fact that Apple originated much of technology that today we take for granted, did you? What, did you think all of great inventions of computer world came from Microsoft (sarcasm intended)? While Apple didn't always invent what it sold, it tended to create good solid products of exceptionally high quality (it's too bad that in those days Apple didn't have marketing ability of a wet paper bag). And they usually created these wonders way before anyone else.

Quicktime was an incredible invention at time. I remember when it came out (yes, I admit I loved old MacIntosh computers, and I was really upset when I realized how badly Apple had blown their chances to become top computer company) and how exciting it was to be able to see moving pictures on a computer. Wow, that was in incredible thing.

Quicktime is one of three major competing products: Real (by RealNetworks), Quicktime and Microsoft Media Player, and it's dead last in popularity. Personally, I think technology is very good and reliable, but Quicktime is suffering from problem that it is perceived as a MacIntosh product. Most people use a Windows platform.

Of course, Quicktime runs on may different platforms. In fact, product runs very, very well on Windows and is definitely up their in quality with it's competitors.

Using stylesheets is not difficult. In fact it makes task of designing a website that much easier. However many new designers don't use them.

But before dispelling some of confusion, let us look at advantages of using CSS - cascading style sheets.

ADVANTAGES

1) You can use an external stylesheet to control look and appearance of your whole website, such as font size, style, and color, background image, background color, etc... by changing a single file. You don't need to edit every page.

2) Linking to a stylesheet reduces size of your web pages and gives you much cleaner HTML code because you don't need to specify font, color, or "style" of every element on your page.

3) Web pages are displayed differently on different browsers and platforms. For example a 10pt font looks fine on a PC but becomes too small on a Mac. You can use a browser-detection script in header of your pages which will link to a different stylesheet depending on which browser is being used.

The rest of this article assumes you have a basic understanding of HTML tags, code behind your web pages. If not you can get our simple HTML tutorial at - http://www.thewebseye.com/HTML.htm.

Now using stylesheets is actually easier than HTML. The main cause of confusion is that you can either link your web pages to an external stylesheet, or you can include style sheet in header of individual web pages inside STYLE tags. Web design software does not always make this clear unless you read HELP pages in detail. Forget your web design software for a moment, because it is easier to understand stylesheets if you take a look under surface.

An external style sheet can be as simple and powerful as this:

BODY { background-image: url(images/mybackground.gif); background-color: #FFFFFF; }

P { FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: navy }