What's the #1 rule of blogging?

It's the most basic rule, and I broke it last week. Never ever assume what you see in one browser is what you get in another. 99% of all blogs use a flexible template that allows sections to float in the space that best fits the current viewport. I had put a picture that was a little too wide and it pushed my sidebar in IE below my posts. Chris Angel or David Blane would have been proud of my unintentional neat trick. It is also the most common problem we write to our bloggers about.

It's known as the bounding box problem, a difference in interpretation of the bounding box around a div or section. IE and Firefox treat padding differently and hence while your content or sidebar may seem to fit in one browser, the lack of space actually pushes the sidebar out of sight below the rest of the page. Even though you planned your blog layout carefully, all of us at one time or another have forgotten this simple rule and added a picture that is a tad too wide causing sidebars to vanish.

It is the #1 rule of blogging. Always check regularly that your blog displays properly in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox and (Safari, yes Mac users read blogs too!)...

Lest you write to TheGoodBlogs and ask, "Dude, where's my sidebar?"