Flash sucks
flash intros penalise in search, annoy your customers
anything that makes the page load longer, kills customer retention

WYSiWYG what you see is what you get
as in "FrontPage is a wysiwyg editor"

the code sample at the top of the prior reply should be cut and pasted into 'html view' in frontpage if you use it
the...

Google
gradient fill
gradient background

its a 1px high, very wide image repeated in Y direction
1000s availble for download at 'webmaster tools' sites

read the css guides on how to repeat...