[NTLUG:Discuss] Website design questions

[Fred]

Anyone want to have a go at answering some rather basic questions 
about website design concepts? I put a site together and it works, but...

That is about all I can say for it.  Basically, I made the home page and 
figured that I would not proceed farther until I got that part right. The
concept, which sounded good at the time, was to forego flash and
use an animated gif image as the background image for the page.
The biggest problem is the gif file size. At almost 2 megs it takes way 
too long to load the home page. So it is time to back up and start over
since I don't believe that this can be fixed.

Which brings me back to the beginning: anyone want to spend a little 
time talking with me about the finer points of web design? 

Thanks in advance,

Fred