VRML, Virtual Reality Markup Language (or Virtual Reality Modelling Language, if you prefer), is a veritable format which enjoyed a brief period of popularity in the 1990s. Rather like video telephony, it turned out that just because something was technically possible, it didn't mean that people actually wanted to use it. But the format persists, although largely superseded by other, only slightly more popular formats.

Still, whilst dusting off my disco glitter flares I finally found a use for VRML, when I discovered Virtual Insects, a website last updated in 1999, featuring VRML insects, and a spider!

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External link: http://www.mediamachines.com/developer.php

Matthew and I are always taking photographs, particularly on a biodiversity theme, and have used these on several of our projects. See Wild on Wight for some of my close up photos of invertebrates and others.

Having our own photo library is great; there is usually a suitable image that we can use to illustrate our or our clients' work. However, sometimes we just do not have what we need. Take Pinkeye Graphics latest job for the Footprint Trust, for example. The brief was to design a series of postcards to publicise the Warmahome project. I had already designed a logo and poster to promote this worthy enterprise and the postcards were to be the jam.

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Does the term Internet Explorer 6 make you break into a sick, pale sweat? Or is it some old thing on your computer - in fact, hey, what is Internet Explorer 6? In the former case, you're a web designer. In the latter, you're one of the awesomely large 30% of websurfers still using IE6 or an earlier version. I know this because my Google Analytics account which monitors the static part of my biggest website, Naturenet, tells me:

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External link: http://www.quirksmode.org/css/condcom.html

Some people are mystified by the magik of the internet - how is a website made and how does it end up in virtual space?

Funnily enough, print design does not seem to have the same mystique - although it should. Perhaps this is because even the most rudimentary of 'desktop publishing' tools can be used to produce competent artwork. Even the ubiquitous Microsoft Word has empowered many budding poster designers with its rubbishy WordArt (Gawd help us!).

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Some people are agog when they discover the amount of time that Matthew and I sit at our computers; sometimes it amounts to over 13 hours a day - plus we have to eat and sleep like normal humans.

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