The core of this post is designed for WordPress users–but there are just a couple more steps needed for everyone else.

You’ve heard me mention it before–the pain and suffering that goes into working with Internet Explorer 6. It just doesn’t follow the rules.

While layout problems are a major pain, one of my pet peeves is the lack of transparent PNG support in IE6. That’s what we’re here to talk about today–how to fix these problems in just a few seconds without having to do any code editing yourself.

For months (years), there have been quite a few different solutions out there on how to fix these PNG problems. Most of them revolve around inserting some JavaScript into your site’s head and changing the names of all of your PNG files. Unfortunately, a lot of these workarounds have been limited, unable to deal with outside the box PNGs, such as those which have been tiled or used as backgrounds, or so on and so forth.

With all of these setbacks, one solution has seemed to work the best–the Unit PNG Fix. It’s small, simple, and does the job really well. Certainly better than most. I’m using it on some of my other sites, but not this one–yet.

The only real problem remaining is that you actually have to edit your site’s code to ascertain the benefits of the PNG fix.

But those days are gone.

Thanks to the work of Vincenzo Russo, we now have a plugin (aptly named the WP-UnitPNGfix) that can do exactly what the Unit PNG Fix is capable of doing, without having to edit any code. It’s only for WordPress, but that’s better than nothing.

So, if you’re having trouble making that step to edit your own code, try installing this plugin instead. You’ll thank yourself later.

Let me get something out in the open here. I despise Internet Explorer 6. There. I said it.

Is it the lack of security? Is it the fact that a third of the internet using populace still embrace it? No, it’s the fact that it is annoying as hell when it comes to web design because the Microsoft engineers were too lazy to make their browser obey common standards.

So where does this leave me? I know about all of the bugs and annoyances built in to IE6, but I’m a Mac user, so I don’t really get to see where the problems are until I’m able to use a friend’s laptop running XP. What do I find when I look at Contented Niche? Garbage–all thanks to Internet Explorer.

If you’re looking at this site through Safari, Firefox, Opera (and likely even IE7, though I’m not entirely sure), you’ll find something that I consider stylish. Transparent PNGs, an attractive background, well laid out columns and images. None of that is present in IE6. Well, the background is, but that’s about it.

I implore you, if you’re still using Internet Explorer’s previous model, upgrade now. It doesn’t hurt. I know you can see that spiffy Javascript drop down designed by Save the Developers. Click it. Read about how much better the other browsers are. Make the switch. Stop wasting your time on a shoddy browser. In five minutes, I guarantee you’ll have a better browsing experience if you upgrade to Firefox, Safari, Opera, or even IE7.