My address is http://www.freewebs.com/alexspcrepair

it's not finished yet but if you have any sugestions please let me know thank you

well to be honest its not up to code which should be your first step
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...C+worldwide%29
its not HTML 4.02 compleint nor XHTML compleint
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...0+Transitional

so that should be your first step before cotninueing furher

If you want to come across as a reputable business, avoid slang. Don't use words such as "wanna" if you're trying to attract an adult audience.

I think it would be the last step. I've worked with a lot of web designers, and damn good ones, and none of them validate it. The people that have validated their web sites are web developers who aren't great at web design. They can still come up with nice layouts that are sharp and professional, but nowhere near as something like http://www.estudio.com, http://www.2advanced.com, or http://www.deviantart.com. The first two are in Flash, but hopefully you know the difference in graphic professionalism between those three and those found at: http://www.oswd.org/

The more complex your layout the harder it is to make it compliant. While it can be done, professional web designers and developers have deadlines and it's probably last on their list unless requested. The only validation they do is make sure it works on the more browser popular browsers (going back 1-2 generations) and operating systems. The more you validate and try to please everyone, the more you sacrifice in your design and time. What I'm getting at is that it always depends your target audience. If your audience was the visually impaired, then I'd refer you to something like Bobby:
http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

Agreed. Last step. And I wouldnt even worry about it, really. IMHO, the first step would be to consider the site's verbiage: cscgal is way right, always treat your customers with the respect they deserve by using proper grammar and spelling.

Second, consider your audience. Are they mostly the aging PC community with 15 inch CRTs and dial-ip connections looking for an inexpensive solution to their hardware conflict or virus infection? Are they 20-somethings with gaming hotrods who need new somethingorother because they're overclocking to the moon? Must they be local, or are you going to extend shiping charges to them?

I think for design, the most important factors for usability are your users screen res, browser version and type, platform (Macs with safari dont run all the html code that work with IE&NS). look up "web stats" at the W3C to see what the stats are for browsers, etc.
Download a bunch of browsers for viewing your pages. I have IE, NS, Opera and Mozila on just about all my PCs for viewing. This will give you a good idea of user compatibility.

Based upon this decision, you can decide what to write your pages with; html4, xhtml, css, xml...

If you were going to ask me for suggestions, I would give you three:

1. use tables with css attributes. the table is understood by all borwsers and you can set its width and position to something that fits the majority of browsers. Additionally, positioning elements with a table is more reliable accross browsers than with style attributes.
2. keep playing around. develop more ideas and even find some site you like (like this one) and try to emulate it. in other words, keep learning new stuff and keep growing.
3. learn new languages. i think xml and css are indispensible. I also think that (depending on your preference or aversion to MS/UNIX) you should learn some server-side stuff. Personally, I like VBS for IIS, it was just thi first thing I learned and I havent had time for PHP.

- Getting and learning Flash might also be useful too.
- oh, and number three...consider using a color scheme. i like to go to (seriously, dont laugh :cheesy: ) home depot and get the little paint color sample paper things and find a few that really go well together. then I try to find their hex codes and use them. its fun and you get to learn and memorize the hexadecimal (*raises eyebrow* - spelling?) color codes.

Otherwise, keep it up, and keep playing with it, changing it, and trying to make it better.

rockon!

-gkd

Gosh, your Home Depot idea is really smart. I would do something very similar - except I would use the color picker off their website. Just pick your colors, screenshot them, paste them into photoshop, and use the eye-dropper to get your color code.

Seriously man, awesome idea - ya learn something new every day !

HA! I would never have thought to look at their site to use a color picker and go from there! I'll sure save on gas money every time I get a new client from now on. :cheesy:

I guess you do learn something new everyday.