Well, I'm too busy to actually write up site design tricks or anything like that. But check out sitecopy for syncing your local mirror with an ftp server, WebMacros, the Web Metalanguage, and, of course, the Gimp - which you can script! in Perl or scheme! which makes it sweet for makefiles, and generating large sites in general.
Some impressive sites include dirty.org and hi-res, especially soulbath.
You can see a little of what I've done with the Gimp here
The stuff above is for static websites. For dynamic websites, you'll want to look at Perl, php (which is great), and Velocigen for lickety-split perl CGI. For your database, you'll want MySQL if you want speed, PostgreSQL for large object handling, and Oracle on Solaris for ultra reliable, Java-fied mission-critical enterprise e-commerce stuff. Enhydra is interesting.
PNG homesite Not Just Decoration: Quality Graphics for the Web
These applets were commissioned by CBA, but those nice folks agreed to a joint ownership situation.
So if you want these applets, I can give them to you. You'll have to email me to ask for them, though, as I can't be bothered to zip them up at the moment.
For seriously good applets, try David Griffiths or OpenCube.
First: the scroller, a very standard sort of applet. You can attach a url to any message, and configure it in
various ways. There's also a Netscape-only javascript trick to make the applet automatically be the width of the
frame it's in. Next: a drop-down menu applet. It's a bit kludgy. You can specify an image for the background, if you like. As
I've done here. Lastly, my tree menu applet. A handy navigational aid for any website, this gizmo can be persuaded
to generate an imagemap of itself (that's the gif and the html) to save you the trouble. If you click
here you can replace the navigation menu at right with this baby.
You can also control the menu with javascript, which is convenient for framed sites.