Model websites?

Hi,

I'm fairly new on the web scene, and I'm into making my second site right now.

I'd like to know some of the best web sites out there, in terms of overall functinality, design, visual impact, and user-friendliness.

I know it's a broad question, with possibly as many answers as personal preferences out there. But I'd like to get an idea of some of the sites out there that have given the most inspiration to you as a developer.

Thanks!

It really is a very broad question, one that I don't really feel comfortable answering. The main problem here is that I can only give you my own opinion about it. But if you want to know sites that I personally like;

- phpwizards.net
- maguma.com
- gatefive.fi (my former employer )
- mercuriusonline.com

Those are a few web sites I like, though there are others. Although I extensive graphic and DHTML designing hinders a page, also those with clever graphics and good looks please my eye, taken that they don't over do it.

Ones that pop up in mind are
www.adobe.com www.zend.com www.whirlpool.net.au www.cisco.com www.lindows.com www.foolabs.com/xpdf/ and, just out of good memory of the guy, www.duke.ru

well... i can only remember a couple of sites off the top of my head, if you're interested in graphics and flash animation.

2_advanced and eyeball-design.

Although they can look cool (if you have a broadband connection!) extensive graphics or flash are just a pain in the ***. Never rely on something the user can switch off or not have a plug in for as navigation. You can do plenty of cool things with BASIC graphic and text navigation.

Just my opinion tho'

I agree on that, but in this case I think most people listed sites that looked impressive, and ignored that little detail. Which is pretty nice to do sometimes and just surf the web enjoying some of the most graphical sites with flash and all sorts of bells and whistles.

I personally thwarted the idea to learn Flash with my friend because of this, and this is also the reason why I avoid using extensive Javascripts and CSS on my projects.

Well, from my list only adobe uses some flash, and even their site is quite 'viewable' with lynx. There is no 'good' or 'bad' technology, and it doesn't make whole lot of sense not learning something just because there might still be a couple guys with ie or nn 4.* without plugins.