D_Blackwell - 1:53 am on Nov 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

the about link would turn pink and stay pink for as long as I was on that page basically until I clicked on another link to go to another page. But thats wrong

Correct. It is still doable. You have choices to achieve that effect. One is to set the CSS style for that 'link', on that page, to be pink if you are on that page. Another option is to use PHP, which is a fancier way to do the same thing.

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when I click on a link it changes to the active state and as soon as I release the mouse button it returns to the default link state

Exactly correct - with the understanding that if :visited were a different color, then the color would be different when you returned. I wouldn't bother with three links, but a page with a long list of links should have :visited style so that the user can easily keep track of where they have been.