This is an experiment in creating a fancy-looking webpage with a minimum loading time.
Download tile here
The background is a simple solid-color tile. The effect of a bordered
background is created by a table, with the left-hand column using a graphic
as background.
This wouldn't work on older browsers (Netscape 2.x) that did not recognize the "body" tag in table elements. But according to my webpage stats, Netscape 2.x is officially extinct. If anyone is using Netscape 2.x to view your page, they will still see a lovely page they just won't see the border effect.
An exciting thing about using this technique is that it gives you the utmost
flexibility. You can choose your border design and your background color,
choose whether to put your border on the left or on the right, or both
and your page will adjust to any viewer's window size, without
requiring that everyone load a 1400-pixel-wide graphic just in case
one of them might have an experimentally humongous high-res screen.
You can also create the effect of having any number of customized buttons while loading only one image file. For each "button", define a table with width 95 pixels, height 155 pixels, background "seatag.gif" (or whatever name you save the file under.) Then use whatever text you want in the table, at your choice of font and color.
Your choice of border images
You can further decorate your table with your choice of mermaids:
My favorite, same background as this page, 20K
A websafe color background. 25K, but you don't have to use an image background, just a color background.
Transparent GIFs that
should work on any background