I think Im just gonna go the long way around and skip this whole coppermine photo album idea, Im better off just making the album myself.
Does this mean the job offer doesn't apply any more? Let me know, so I can flag this thread as invalid.
The pages you're refering to are nice, especially
http://www.stex-studio.us/mandy The second one uses frames, which is a technique that most designers consider as deprecated, mostly because of the issues most search engines have with it. As the top and left frame don't hold to much grahics, I would consider redoing the pages and including the navigation (with SSI or PHP), will make them look more complete, and please the search engines.
For years, the differences and incompatibilities between browsers have been bothering web designers, with IE being the most important browser (stats differ, depending on who you ask - I'd say 90% IE users, 10% other browsers), but finally there are enough good browsers around that respect web standards (well, more or less
), so most web workers agree that although you can not have beautiful pages, valid code and cross-browser compatibility with one web page, the page should be accessible for users with all kinds of browsers - in some countries, there are even laws on accessibility (imagine users with impaired sight who need to browse your page with a screen reader or other tools). What I'm trying to say: get at least one alternative browser, better two of them to run on your machine and check the looks of your pages from time to time - I recommend Mozilla Firebird and Opera (as you're probably on MS Windows).
I know the dilema very well: there are some who know their way around in web technology (html, JavaScript, CSS, PHP etc.) - call them geeks. There are others who know graphics, vision and artwork - call them designers or artists. Very rarely web workers are equally good in both fields (I tend to see myself in the first category, you probably are in the second one). Although the technology aspect of web pages might not be as interessting for you as design is, you will still have to find some balance between those two aspects, which means in your current situation: get a really good and fast browser (Firefox) and review your pages with it. You won't have to code with plain text editors, but you should be aware that some features the wysiwyg editors offer won't work in all browsers.
Cheers
Joachim
P.S. Da Du laut Deinem Resumé ein bißchen Deutsch sprichst: viel Spaß weiterhin mit Coppermine!