By themselves, HTML and XHTML are neither particularly complex nor overwhelmingly difficult. As some high-tech wags (including a few rocket scientists) have put it, HTML ain't rocket science! Nevertheless, important dos and don'ts can make or break the Web pages you build with HTML, XHTML, and CSS. Consider these humble admonishments as guidelines for making the most of your markup without losing touch with your users (or watching your page blow on its launch pad).

If some points we make throughout the book seem to crop up here, too -- especially regarding proper and improper use of (X)HTML -- it's no accident. Heed ye well the prescriptions and avoid ye the maledictions. But hey, they're your pages. You can do what you want. Your users will decide the ultimate outcome. (We'd never say, "We told you so." Nope. Not us!)

• http://validator.w3.org
• You can also search Google for "How to validate HTML files" and find useful pages such as www.w3schools.com/site/site_validate.asp

Page 335: Avoiding browser dependencies

• http://brainstormsandraves.com/articles/browsers/lynx/
• https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1944

Page 338: Web site maintenance and "ghost" sites

• http://www.disobey.com/ghostsites/index.shtml

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