internet explorer problems :( -- ie peekaboo

I have a few odd things that are happening with ie and was wondering if anyone has had the same issues:

1.clearing floats: on the home page the centerColumn is not expanding as it should. the background is black so the bottom products are in the black portion. i checked through my style sheet, and i did not explicitly set the height. i checked the source on the browser, and the <br class='clearBoth'/> is at the end of the final item.

2.another ie bug: this one is much weirder. on some pages the product description is being printed in white. i explicitly set the centerColumn color to black. now it gets stranger. when i play around on the browser (going back and forth highlighting portions of the hidden text bits and pieces start to display). this is a new one for me.

the site is http://www.alienmagictricks.com/

any ideas would be awesome.

Without peeking into your code, I'd say there's something wrong in your css file. I noted the same odd highlighting behavior on your home page and the text near the copyright info is black on a black background as well. I have a few carts that are on black pages and they do not have this issue (I run IE 6) .

If you want to have a look at what may be wrong, try this link:
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
input the complete path to your css file and it will analyze it for you. Prepare to be bombed with errors and warnings because this page is very specific about what it feels is and is not valid css. Some of their warnings can be ignored (then again, some of the warnings could be about black text on a black background, so look carefully there too), but if there are ERRORS highlighted, that's where to begin.

I found your first problem.... It didn't take too much digging, it's the first style section....

body {
 margin: 0;
 font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
 font-size: 62.5%;
 color: #000000;
 background-color: #000;
 }
 
 

Notice your background color and your font color are both black. Also, while using 3 digit color codes will technically work, it's considered bad css. You should try to always use 6 digit color codes in your css files.

Another text color problem:

#headerWrapper{
background-color:#000;
text-align:center;
width:100%;
}
	
#navColumnOneWrapper, #navColumnTwoWrapper{
	background-color:#000;
	padding-left:5px;
	padding-right:5px;
	} 

#tagline {
	color:#000000;
	font-size: 2em;
	text-align : center;
	vertical-align: middle;
	}

Again, Tagline is text... Wrapper styles refer to the boxes the text is in. Both are black.

Hi Ripper,
Thanks a lot for taking the time out to look that over. It turned out to be the IE peekaboo bug.