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It's bright and early on Monday morning and a rather interesting week stretches ahead of Steve and me. Finally, after months of preparation, a mainstream project of mine is about to go live this week and I'm really excited about it.

Even though this is an online project one of the last stages of the project happened in our garage on Saturday when Steve erected a couple of sets of shelving to handle the stock. Unfortunately for Steve getting that shelving together meant that he had to twist his body around into some shapes that it's no longer accustomed to being in and now the poor guy is paying for it. All those long years of sitting in front of the computer are coming back to haunt him and his body is complaining every time he gets out of the chair.

So there's a tip right there for newbies who are coming into this industry. No matter how hard you think you have to work at getting sites and galleries up there and no matter how long you think that you have to work every single day just make sure that you allow some regular time for exercise. Your body will thank you for it in the years ahead.

Steve and I are taking some of our own advice this evening and heading for the gym.

While we're thinking about tips for newbies perhaps I should offer up a few more basic tips about web design ... and you really can't get more basic than that when it comes to this industry.

Learn enough to code by hand
Steve and I built our first websites over 12 years ago and back then there were no HTML editors ... at least none that we could find ... and we coded everything by hand. Of course these days there are plenty of HTML editors around and neither of us have hand-coded a site in years ... but knowing how to do that is still valuable.

Even today every HTML editor has its limitations and sometimes you do have to dive into the code and make changes by hand. If you don't know the basics of HTML then you're going to be struggling so take the time to learn it ... or at least have a good book on HTML on your desk so that you can refer to it when you need to. Don't put yourself in the position where you have to rely totally on a piece of software because the time will come when it will let you down.

Tables are still important
Before CSS came along everyone produced their websites using tables to place various elements on the screen. There's no doubt that designing with tables does have limitations and if you want to go beyond a very basic design you do have to take tables well beyond what they were originally designed for ... but don't think that tables have now been superseded by CSS despite what some people will tell you.

Of course you're going to hear a lot of hype about CSS being good for search engine optimization, curing code bloat, being more pure, shortening download times and yada yada yada ... most of which is basically bullshit.

If you want to believe those who suggest that CSS is better for search engine optimization than tables are then just take a wander through the SERPS for just about any term (other than CSS) that you can think of and hit the first five results. When you're on those pages view source and I bet you'll find tables as basic design elements in most ... if not all ... of them.

If you want to believe that CSS cures code bloat then once again ... just have a look around at the source code for various sites. You'll see just as much bloated code and even more spacer.gifs in CSS pages than you will in pages that use tables for design.

As for CSS shortening download times ... well if download times are important then maybe those who think that CSS shortens download times should get their sites placed on faster servers.

Now all that doesn't mean that I'm anti CSS because I'm definitely not; I'm incorporating more and more CSS into every new site I produce. What I am say though is that you don't need to produce a pure CSS based site or gallery to make money in this business.

You can still build your pages using tables and out-rank and out-sell pages built by CSS fanatics. So don't feel that you have to understand CSS before you build your first site. All you need is a basic understanding of HTML and you're right to go.

And now I'm right to head out the door and down to our office to get with the rest of today. It promises to be a good day for us and I hope it's the same for you.