Whenever this discussion comes up, i always point people to the famous (or rather infamous) quark logo controversy: :)
http://www.creativepro.com/article/sometimes-a-logo-is-just-a-logo
What Centauri says. CSS-based drop-downs like Suckerfish are the way to go.
And they're not difficult at all once you learn a bit about html unordered lists and CSS.
SVG file imports are definitely supported by GIMP, however to export files as SVG from GIMP you'll need to install this plugin:
http://registry.gimp.org/node/100
If you use a Dreamweaver, it also provides a browser compatibility tool which allows you to test your webpages and reports on any potential issues. Though not perfect in any way, it does a reasonable...
Your page has got plenty of MS-office specific tags, which conflict with web standards and seriously need to be removed if it has any chance of rendering consistently in all browsers.
although there are plenty of tutorials for spotlight available on the web, however this one is my personal favorite (disclaimer: No, it isn't my site. :) )
Before i comment on the web design, i would like point out that the logo looks alarmingly similar to that of feedburner. Google which owns feedburner these days, won't be too happy to see that.
960 grid system is quickly becoming the defacto standard for modern web design. Visit the following link to learn more about it and to download templates which would assist you in developing web...
You can plenty of gorgeous looking jquery-based slideshow scripts on the link below:
http://bradblogging.com/jquery/9-jquery-slideshow-applications-you-cannot-miss/
If i am not mistaken, you will have to use HTML DIR attribute to set the direction of the text from left-to-right to right-to-left. Read the following for further info and examples of this attribute....
a) use image rotation through a scripting language such as javascript/ajax.
b) if the images aren't photos, then you can stick all of them in an animated...
Basically what you're describing is what a membership site does.
You can create one by yourself if you know a programming language llike PHP or ASP.net, or you can buy a stable, feature-packed...