First-time Web developers are probably surprised to learn all the silliness that you have to endure in order to get anything more more than the simplest site to look good in the various browsers. Sometimes it can become a total nightmare, where one browser makes everything look perfect, while another messes up tables and text and pictures overlap or aren’t even there.

Worse, fixing one problem, creates yet another in the original browser. It’s a vicious circle, and one that I have confronted often. In fact, when our original Webmaster, Brent Lee, updated all our sites last year, he often had to write separate code strictly to accommodate the eccentricities of Internet Explorer. You see, Microsoft has its own bright ideas on how Web standards ought to be implemented, and they don’t always follow the rest of the industry. In a sense, they want you to accept to their point of view, rather than the other way around.

Even if you overcome the Internet Explorer equation, it’s a huge juggling match to get everything else to work properly among Firefox (and its derivatives), Opera, Safari and lesser applications. At the end of the day, you have to compromise big-time to get things to look as good as possible, and I have to say I’m not always happy with the end results.

To make matters all the more confusing, some sites are designed to work strictly in Internet Explorer, because they support some Microsoft-only feature, such as the ever-insecure ActiveX. In one case close to me, a client who worked in the real estate industry was forced to use Windows in order to access a multiple listing site that the firm who employed her subscribed to. Fortunately, that site eventually added support for Opera (but still not the other browsers), and she was able to abandon Windows for good.

Despite all these headaches, each browser developer touts its fidelity to Web standards and how well it does at various canned performance and rendering tests. Now maybe that’s true, but things don’t always play out that way in the real world. You see, as soon as you add special applications, such as the ever-popular WordPress blogging software and various forum systems, all bets are off. Install a few modifications and special themes, and the situation becomes even more complicated.

Let’s compare that to the desktop publishing world.

Back in the 1980s, Adobe introduced the PostScript description language, which basically defined the characteristics of the printed page in mathematical terms. The end result is that, save for an output device’s limitations in terms of print resolution and color quality, documents would almost always reproduce with near-perfect fidelity. Everything was predictable; well, so long as everyone used the same fonts, meaning the same versions from the same vendor.

The PDF format that also lies at the core of Mac OS X even allows you to embed fonts and illustrations in a document. It’s also an industry standard, so that near-perfect precision can be consistent even across computing platforms.

Indeed, Apple and Adobe, together, made the desktop publishing revolution possible over two decades ago. While there had to be a few compromises along the way, the day that traditional typographers and graphic artists gave up their old-fashioned tools and bought Macs was the day the publishing world changed for good.

Contrast that with the Web, where everything is approximate, and absolute precision largely remains an unfulfilled dream. Sometimes I wonder if the various browser developers and Webmasters understand that every user, from a Web-based business to the consumer, suffers big time because of this absolute standards disaster.

Sure it’s possible to ensure fairly straightforward compatibility if you lower your standards and keep your sites simple, without the flourishes that separate greatness from mediocrity. That, however, would simply reduce your presentation to the lowest common denominator, and not allow you to take advantage of the best so-called “Web 2.0” features that everyone’s touting. If you do choose to embrace them anyway, you work ten times as hard to make everything work together among all the browsers without breaking too many things.

So is there a real solution to this mess, or just more excuses?

Personally, I think the Web industry needs to support a true PostScript for the Web. That means a consistent mathematical language that allows sites to render consistently among all browsers and computing platforms that support the standard.

You wouldn’t even need to master text-based coding anymore to ensure absolute precision, which has to be a relic of the 1970s; just your favorite desktop publishing application. And it would mean that text, graphics, tables, Flash-banners and all the other goodies we put on our sites would always look good and absolutely the same regardless of which browser we prefer.

Even better, you could use just one document, unaltered, for both online and print content. Instead of having to reinvent the wheel to provide the online analogue of a printed page, you’d prepare your document once and you could deploy it anywhere without the need to make changes, except to, perhaps, insert links and special online banners. Even then, the links could be a native part of the document that would simply not appear in the printed version.

In fact, you can get a great idea how it works in the online version of a PDF file.

Do I make myself clear? Or am I whistling in the dark here? Is a variant of PDF the practical solution to total print and Web integration? Or will Microsoft fight Adobe and the rest of the industry tooth and nail if their proprietary standards aren’t adopted? I wonder.

I suppose Windows users who are offended or simply tired of the overwrought Aero interface are happy they can turn it off. Or never see it, because their PC hardware isn’t powerful enough to render the full, unfettered graphical display. Perhaps they even got a Home Basic edition, which is free of special visual effects, even as an option.

Yet there’s actually a class-action lawsuit brewing where some folks claim, in their legal documents, that Microsoft deliberately misled them into believing they had a PC that supported all of the key features of Vista, only to discover that the graphics were crippled. Maybe they were lucky, but they evidently believe otherwise, or perhaps their attorneys just hope for a huge payday and don’t really care.

To be sure, Microsoft is late to the eye-candy party. Apple delivered first, way back in 2001 with the first official release of Mac OS X. In fact, they got roundly criticized for their excesses, but managed to tone down the most irritating visual artifacts, at least to some of you.

Even though the basic interface of Leopard is far subtler, there’s even more of a feast for the eyes, maybe enough to cause a stomach ache for some of you. Everything happens with a flourish, even such a simple thing as switching desktops courtesy of Spaces. The visual effect varies depending on whether the new space is above the present one, or to its side, and extends the concept of sliding a frame into view, horizontally, vertically, or somewhat diagonally, as appropriate.

But in talking with one of our regular commentators on The Tech Night Owl LIVE, I was reminded that even special effects of short duration might cause a negative effect. Imagine, for example, if you’re visually disabled and your vision tends to be somewhat clouded via cataracts or another ailment. Maybe you suffer from migraines, as far too many do. Would too many 3D widgets serve to exacerbate your symptoms?

I suppose, in theory, this might make sense, but before someone goes off half cocked and proclaims that Leopard is dangerous to your health, let me assure one and all that I have never tested the theory. While I do have an occasional headache, I do not feel compelled to run to the medicine cabinet because of the deleterious effects of gazing upon my Mac for too long a period and enduring all its visual effects.

This isn’t to say I am immune to such symptoms. In the days when I used large-screen CRT displays, gazing intently at the display for a long period of time forced me to rush for the handy bottle of Advil several times a day. I always kept those bottles near me just in case. In fact, one of the reasons I adopted LCD displays so rapidly was because the symptoms were vanquished. The higher price may, in part at least, have compensated for the fact that I could place the little bottle of pills back in the cabinet and only consume them rare occasions.

But the real reason you buy a personal computer is to get something done, either play with email, digital photos and music downloads, or something more practical, such as earning your day’s pay. Regardless, you certainly would want to keep disturbances to the minimum. Distractions, irritations, eye and wrist strains can all conspire to blast your productivity to smithereens.

In fact, after all these years in front of a keyboard, I do not suffer from too many shoulder and wrist aches. I take frequent rests from my Mac, and even walk around my home office to get a little exercise, in addition to my daily workout regimen. My keyboard, presently part of Logitech’s excellent Cordless Desktop Wave desktop set, has keys situated a slight semi-circle, in the fashion of an ergonomic keyboard. They are also elevated and lowered across the keyboard, which is the reason for the “Wave” designation in the product’s name.

I find that keyboard supremely comfortable, and, in fact, became accustomed to it almost immediately. The companion ambidextrous mouse has some degree of customization, and it’s also reasonably comfortable, with smooth button and scroll wheel action.

More to the point, even on that superb 30-inch Dell display I’m using these days, I find that I am not at all disturbed by Apple’s 3D excesses in any way. The translucent menu bar and 3D Dock aren’t distracting at all, or maybe I got used to them, so they don’t conspire to force me to lose my focus.

I haven’t been immersed in Time Machine’s Sci-Fi effects much, simply because I have not had the need to recover a file, but it’s great to show to skeptical Windows users who can’t fathom Vista’s questionable backup capability.

On the other hand, you can’t account for taste, so I wouldn’t even try. If Leopard’s eye-candy serves to distract you, then it is a genuine problem that ought to be dealt with in some fashion. At the very least, I think Apple should consider adding a preference pane in a future maintenance update that would let you disable the worst excesses, if that’s what you prefer. Certainly, you can search the Internet and find software solutions that’ll handle those chores. In the end, whatever makes you happy. Because even without the visual pizazz, Leopard is a first-rate, incredibly solid operating system.

As to those people who claim it’s a lemon, well, I don’t know what they’re drinking or smoking, or maybe it depends on certain installation scenarios that I’ve not encountered. But everything just works for me.

Let’s take a trip back through time, to the 1990s, where the words “Apple” and “beleaguered” were usually described in the same sentence, rarely more than a few words apart. I suppose you could say that there was a death watch too, with lots and lots of publications waiting for Apple to bite the big one, or just go bankrupt and get swallowed up by another company. In a few years, the name would remain, but everything else would be history.

Of course, it didn’t turn out that way, although Apple came mighty close to the precipice for a while, as it began to hemorrhage money in the mid-1990s. This all happened before they succumbed to the famous Steve Jobs sales pitch (notice I didn’t say “reality distortion field,” but you get the idea) and bought NeXT.

I suppose, with all of Apple’s missteps, you could forgive a number of tech writers for suggesting that Windows 95 contained all the significant features of the Mac OS, and that Apple’s remaining opportunities to remain alive in the PC business were doomed to failure. There were times when I felt I had to force myself to convince people that Macs were still better, and the best those T-shirts could display was “Macs suck less than Windows.”

Of course, when Apple actually heeded demands to open its operating system and license it and hardware reference designs to other companies to build Mac OS clones, it was a train wreck of the first order. Startups such as Power Computing went right after Apple’s key markets with cheaper boxes and faster processors. Steve Jobs understood the dangers and stopped the program dead in its tracks before the company was destroyed by its own licensees.

Even when the first iMac took the world by storm, many suggested that Apple was forever consigned to niche status, and could never grow its market share again.

When the iPod came out, how many of you believed that it would soon come to dominate the media player market, and that there would be an iTunes store that would actually do more business on the Windows platform?

Sure, every single pretender to the throne was touted as the “iPod killer” of the day, only to disappear the next. Microsoft’s Zune was believed to have the best chance of gaining traction, but it came at the expense of Microsoft’s nearly-abandoned “PlaysForSure” partners.

Oh yes, there’s a report that the Zune has been a top seller at Amazon, but that’s the discontinued first edition, being dumped at fire-sale prices because Microsoft had some many left in their warehouses. Seems Microsoft has a reputation for flooding the market with product to tout high shipping rates, as dealers struggle mightily to get them off the shelves and into the hands of customers. The newest Zunes are showing tepid sales, just like their predecessors when they were first introduced.

Do you remember what the critics said when Apple decided to open its own chain of retail outlets? After all, Gateway had failed, so how could Apple possibly succeed? Give it a year or two, and they’ll give up and run off, tails tucked between their legs. Of course, with 201 stores and record visitors and profits, the naysayers were wrong yet again.

The iPhone? Wow, how could Apple even think of entering the well-entrenched wireless phone market. It’s so saturated, that the carriers are now signing up more and more subscribers at the expense of their rivals, perhaps including the beleaguered (there’s that word again) Sprint, which is the only major company to actually show a loss of customers in recent quarters.

From the very date of the official iPhone announcement at last January’s San Francisco Macworld Expo, a number of journalists tried to find reasons to justify their claim that Apple couldn’t possibly make a dent with such a product. It had to be a flash in the pan.

Besides, who’d want to use a touch screen keyboard, when they could use the physical version on their Blackberries? Did Apple really feel the world needed another cell phone?

To make matters worse, how could Apple possibly succeed if they made a deal with an existing wireless provider? So would they end up having to build their own network too?

Of course, we all know that the dire predictions never came to pass, and that Mac sales are at record levels, even after Apple was accused of pushing its consumer electronic products at the expense of its personal computers.

Then again, good news doesn’t always make a headline. If it bleeds it leads, they used to tell me in my days as a broadcast newsperson. And that, my friends, won’t ever change, I fear.

I often think that some tech pundits have nothing better to do than create fake issues for headlines and hit counts. In recent weeks, I’ve mentioned a few of the more offensive theories, but I think one that is truly bizarre is the claim that we are at the tail end of the PC era, and that full-sized desktop and note-book computers will soon join the dinosaurs in the alternate reality of the obsolete.

Sure, this may strike some as a logical possibility, what with so-called smartphones gaining additional computing features, and the fast take-off of the iPhone. But does it really seem reasonable to you that it’ll be possible, some day, to retire “real” computers and survive strictly on a handheld device?

I suppose if you’re engaged solely in the business of building wireless phones, that’s a future to lust after. But is this a future that the rest of you would accept, or is it just a pipedream on the part of a few companies that are hoping to reach the end of the rainbow and find their pot of gold and wealth?

To be sure, such gadgets as the iPhone can perform a lot of the tasks that we used to do on our Macs and PCs. With a reasonable amount of flexibility, for example, you can browse the Internet and send and receive email. In fact, a growing number of the messages I receive have telltale lines appended to them that identify a BlackBerry or an iPhone as the source.

Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.