Regarding Ajax

[Shovel]

But if your base it off a static page you will be limited and you'll probably just end up using ajax to simulate iframes. (And removing functionality like back buttons and bookmarking... though I did get around these problems in firefox. Though that's another topic.)

Can you elaborate on this? I don't really see what you mean at all, especially regarding IFRAMES.

To clarify my original point:

I mean that to use Ajax properly and accessibly you should build it on top of a fully functional HTML (+CSS) site. As in, the functionality of the page should not be dependent on the behaviour layer.

So, continuing Majonics webring example, you might preesent a list of links at the base of your page. Lets say six <LI> elements. Maybe you use CSS to alignment them horizontally. Fundamentally though, they are hyperlinks. They'll work in any browser ever and search engines too. Lets also say there's a 'More Info' link next to each item in the list that reloads the page and displays a short profile of the site before you choose to visit it.

The Ajax-laced behavior layer then kicks in at runtime (on the onload event) and replaces those More Info links with calls to the server. Now, rather than reload the page clicking on 'More Info' transforms the horizontal list to focus on the selected site and asynchronously loads up that More Info text, inserting it into the <LI> as if the page had reloaded but giving a much smoother experience than reloading.

If you're just using ajax as an alternative to iframes theres no point in using it...

I agree… I think. If you mean using AJAX in navigation to replace the main content of the page, rather than loading a new page then absolutely, that's a terrible practice and breaks the internet to boot.