Not sure how to interpret "Non-programming related topics", but I think this still works somehow...
Here's teh problem I got: I've had it happen to me often where .gif files that have a transparency don't look as good on first load. When I scroll the image away and return back to it the picture look like it was intended to look... it's confusing. I get that all the time with teh "New Topic" and "Post Reply" images on this board as well.
This happens mostly in IE (I got 5.0)... also had that in 5.5 as well, as far as I remember. Does anyone know what the cause for that could be?
You can see an example of this here:
http://dbaryl.host.sk/transparent.html
I made to identical sets of GIFs, only diff. is that one has transparent background... see if they look different to you....
The weird effect disappears when you reload the page, so in order to see it again, you need to use tha [Back] button in your browseer and then hit [Forward] again...