I suggest you first read some epic posts here:
Also, always have in mind some important things:
HTML must be semantic. Create your
HTML structure like it meaning not it
appearance.
Use CSS to all positioning. Remember
that float
, position
, z-index
and clear
are your friends.
Avoid specific browser hacks. In
fact, almost all can be done exactly
for IE9, Chrome, Firefox, Opera and
Safari. Near we have IE8 (only
without CSS3 things). Your hard way
will be IE7, but it isn't so much
away from IE8.
Choose your browsers by audience and
graphics like
this.
I don't care about IE6 anymore and
I'm stoping to care about IE7 too.
Using table
isn't a crime. Tables
was created to tabular data, i.e.
grids, lists with more than 2
columns, etc.
Using table
is a crime. Don't use
it for your layout structure, like
menus, headers, footers, etc.
Using div
also can be a crime.
"Tableless" doesn't means "Divmore".
Your markup must be clean and
semantic ever. Dozens of divs are so
bad as tables could be.
Read W3C
Specs and
understand the web standards like you
understand your own name.
And always discuss (here with us or on many blogs about it) why some approach is better than other.
Good luck!