In my particular case, my sister's bookkeeping site, I considered what her clients might be using, and figured they probably are not state-of-the-art web geeks, and may well have older computer equipment. If they were high-tech and up-to-date on things, they probably already have their own bookkeeping/accounting software and/or accountant. I believe most of her existing clients are non-tech savvy, and that's the target profile I was aiming for, someone who might one day Google "bookkeeper San Diego" and come across her site. (SEO is another of my future projects.)

My main point of resistance at using JS, was that if they are using IE with default settings, which they I'm pretty sure they would be, they have to click three times to view site content:

• once on the IE pop-up banner to get the menu,
• once on the menu item to "View Blocked Content" and
• once to clear the Security Warning dialog box

That's a lot of effort and doubt in the mind of an inexperienced internet user. The original "warning" could be enough to steer them clear from even viewing her site. "Why risk opening a virus-laden site?" is what they might be thinking.

If I were desiging a web site for, say, Epson Printers, I would probably assume a higher level of web sophistication and experience, but not for this site.

That said, I decided to hope that they were all at least at 800x600, but chose a size that wouldn't look *too* bad on 640x480.

OK, back to my current concern, using the "faux columns":

I'd appreciate any comments on how this technique dovetails with accessibility and w3 standards. Unless someone can shame me out of using this method, I like it because it avoids tables and JS.

Thanks for the great ideas and discussion so far!