No-follow links are just as good as "do-follow" links. They WILL help your ranking (consider that a link from wikipedia is excellent and sought-after even though they are no-follow). All a no-follow link does is stop authority and page rank FROM the linking page from transferring to your page. To increase your site's authority & page rank, you will need to get some do-follow links. But ALL links are counted as votes, and carry the same weight, they just don't pass what is known as "link juice".