it's referring to using a 9-cell table to make an element where the corner sizes stay static, while the middle column and middle row stretch horizontally and vertically respectively to match the size of the central cell (which e.g. has variable length text)
then with background image tiling in the left/right and top/bottom middle cells you can get an effect like a drop-shadowed panel that sizes responsively
you'd probably set the flexible cells to width=100% and then have a 1-pixel gif in the edge cells to enforce the desired min-width
I was sad the article didn't mention anything about the 216-colour "web safe" palette, but perhaps the author wasn't old enough to remember having to support users with < 24-bit colour displays... or when 1024x768 took over from 640x480 as the min screen size, allowing use of fixed-width layouts >600 pixels (the max possible: 640, minus browser default page margin, minus scroll bar)...
it's solving a different problem
it's referring to using a 9-cell table to make an element where the corner sizes stay static, while the middle column and middle row stretch horizontally and vertically respectively to match the size of the central cell (which e.g. has variable length text)
then with background image tiling in the left/right and top/bottom middle cells you can get an effect like a drop-shadowed panel that sizes responsively
you'd probably set the flexible cells to width=100% and then have a 1-pixel gif in the edge cells to enforce the desired min-width
I was sad the article didn't mention anything about the 216-colour "web safe" palette, but perhaps the author wasn't old enough to remember having to support users with < 24-bit colour displays... or when 1024x768 took over from 640x480 as the min screen size, allowing use of fixed-width layouts >600 pixels (the max possible: 640, minus browser default page margin, minus scroll bar)...