Introduction to css - cascading style sheets
Learning CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is similar to learning xhtml in one respect. It's best not to start making your stylesheet as soon as you know just a few rules. For your whole web project to work, it helps to know a bit of everything (search engine strategy, business, the browser wars, etc.). With this in mind, for the hasty newcomer I've made a few templates which have all the css in place. Modifying these to suit you is much easier than starting from the beginning.
The existing browser programs (Internet Explorer 5, 5.5, 6; Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, Opera, ...) have very different levels of support for CSS, older Netscape and IE5 being very poor. But most Internet users currently use IE6 (which is good) and the fastest growing browser use is Firefox (even better). Firefox is free, and IE6 is available on the support CDs with virtually any new hardware or anti-virus program.
Opera is now also available as a free download.
Designing for Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox is a good idea. Personally, I prefer Firefox because there is an ever-growing list of free extensions that keen developers make.
These webpages explain CSS for beginners, but for the hasty newcomer (the best type!) there's a quick guide to understanding and modifying the CSS stylesheets with the existing website templates, all on one page.
The existing templates and styles have been tested in the way that really matters - by using them on-site and checking if avaerage page views and Adsense income declines; it hasn't.
Post a comment on the design blog (the most recent post) saying what extra guidance you need, and blogspot notify me promptly!