Please review my site? I have design problems!!!

[Computer How To]

Hi guys
I have made my first website with frontpage. It is about free computer tips and learning. I have no experience with building websites and would love some tips and advice. Please be honest, but not too harsh as I just want to learn and get better.
www.computerhowto.info

[BluesMatt]

I went to your site and looked around a little. First off, you make the purpose of the site and the intended audiance very clear so that's great. I see you are an EBay seller and I see that their are a number of articles already posted regarding lots of different computer topics. I do have some suggestions but understand that I am not an expert either and am constantly learning.

1) I would get rid of the animated gifs. The one in your header is fine, but I would replace the blinking bullets with a nice icon.
2) The links on the left side, I would settle on just 2 colors. If you wanted to keep the links as text, I think that's fine although it might look better if you created actual buttons. When I do this, I create simple jpeg images for the buttons. I use Paint Shop Pro.
3) The black background with a white forground is a strong contrast. Also, because the white is all the way over to the right side, the page feels unbalanced to me. Page layout is a huge topic and many on this forum have great ideas. I suggest looking around the web at sites that you personally like and notice what kind of page layout they are using. Where is the navigation, across the top, along one side, buttons or text links, symetrical or asymetrical, color pallet used. Where's the header? Is there a footer? Do any of the pages open a new window? etc.
4) Colors: another huge topic and one I am trying to understand better myself. Google "color theory". I would not use reverse video type blocks for text. Because each of the reverse video blocks is a different size (width), it feels unbalanced. Try simple text of one color on the black background and I think it'll look better.
5) Never stop experimenting. Try making test pages that use different page layouts, different color pallets, etc. Some designers feel more comfortable experimenting with web page design and layout in other drawing programs like PhotoShop. Sometimes using a different tool helps to free you to try something new.

I hope some of this helps.....................matt