very 12 months I'm faced with the task of paying annual fees to renew the lease on my domains. When the time comes, and it always does, I'm accosted with a familiar pang of guilt: How little attention I pay my poor, neglected site. Am I consistent in sharing with the rest of the world the things I can contribute? Do I frequently post the my hard-earned solutions today to help some poor souls faced with the same problems tomorrow?

A quick review usually dates my last blogs sometime around... last year's domain renewal date.

For shame!

I shake my head, disappointed in myself, and reach for my credit card, resolutely declaring that this year will be different! This year, I always say, I will blog prolifically. People will come to my site and find what they need. After reading my blog, they will immediately stand and dance a jig for the obscure, yet pressing answers that they find. This time, I proclaim, my annual renewal fee won't be for naught!

And this year it's true. I swear it!

Actually, this New Lease's Resolution couldn't have come at a better time. Only a few short weeks ago Microsoft released a new version of Expression Blend, a product that I have come to hold in high regard despite my initial distaste and skepticism. Packaged with the new version of Blend is a formalization of a pattern which has been floating around in various forms for several years now. In Blend, the approach is called "Behaviors" and the UI makes using behaviors a blissful experience. Behaviors will definitely be a topic of those promised blogs.

For now, I've put a little work in on the site. A few additional empty Zones appear to the left, place holders for the content I've just sworn to deliver. If you're familiar with my site, a fan with nothing better to do than avidly follow my two blogs a year (I know you're out there), you might also notice the absence of previously existing zones related to "Interactive Fiction". When the site was in development, these articles were borrowed for the purposes of testing with actual content. If you are looking for these articles, you can still find them at www.OnyxRing.com.

Finally, I've stepped out of my box and updated the site with respect to browser compatibility. It was built originally for IE6, but after a bit of work, it now renders appropriately in newer versions (like IE8) as well as Firefox and Opera. If your browser disagrees, drop me a line and let me know.