Design
I prefer Lucida Sans set in grey. I first noticed widespread use of grey to reduce undesirable contrast of text on Dropbox’s web site.
I adopted the “flat” navigation menu from Paul Graham’s web site; by “flat” I mean that the navigation menu is the same in all pages and reflects the top-level structure of the site. An alternative is a hierarchical navigation menu that change as one descends into a tree of pages. However, most visitor will arrive somewhere in the tree from a search engine, and they will benefit from a flat navigation menu that gives them an overview of the whole site.
I do not offer form-based comments; they are a constant source of irritating web spam. Instead, if someone wishes to comment on a page, I request that they send me an email.
Implementation
This site is served by an Apache HTTP server hosted by DreamHost.
I create the XHTML pages using a custom shell script that invokes John Gruber’s Markdown and SmartyPants processors to do the heavy lifting. The build process is marshalled by make and runs on the DreamHost host.
I create standards-compliant page. I use the W3C XHTML, CSS, and link validators.
I use TextMate and ExpanDrive on a MacBook to edit the page source. I initiate the build process from within TextMate using a Guide file and custom remote-make commands.
I borrowed some CSS tricks from John Gruber’s Daring Fireball web site.