First layout in a while, do I still got it? Options

[funride]

Check it out! Its for my design site Funride.org I'm bringing back.

click to enlarge

[creole]

I see where you're trying to go with this layout style. I see it work on some sites and it looks just amazingly gorgeous. However, this layout isn't a good example.. Like everyone said, the green gradient is too bright. If you're going to keep a gradient background, I suggest toning down the green to a more soft green. For the banner, I think you could get rid of the text boxes. They look too bulky, unless you try to make them a bit more thin and less wide. You could possibly replace the text boxes with overlapping text to have that text overlapping style. If you look at some sites like outspoken-kate, swimchick, 99mockingbirds, they will provide you with a much broader vision of designing a layout. Outspoken-kate has a own layout tutorial making page, I believe. I think this layout has some potential, but you just need to fix things up a lot.

Oh, and about the browser problem. Have you tried telling your mom how vulnerable IE is compared to other browsers? Have you showed her different browsers on the computer or on another computer and persuade her to switch to other browsers because of the better user interface or the graphic interface? You could try Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, or Safari. Really, it's much better.