U need to be a good web developer. Thats it. U should be aware of css and its use. If you are a champ in css thenur site will appear same in all browsers.
Not necessary your website needs to look in the same way. Modern approach, called progressive enchantment, or graceful degradation means that web site should be 'enchanted' with some futureproof techniques (most of all using css3), while older ones (especially ie6), don't need too look in the same way. Although you can, by using hacks force your website to look the same way everywhere, you might loose on load speed, semantic clarity, or SEO usability. Instead of that you should more think about adjusting your site to different devices - iPhones, mobile phones, etc. And if you insist with the same look across the browsers, you need to become familiar with CSS hacks.
I agree with this and to get you jump started you could look into CSS Frameworks such as Typogridphy, 960gs and along those lines. They are fairly quick to get up and running and they look really good across most modern browsers. But know that these may not always be the best way to go but so far I have found that most projects they can be tailored to your needs just fine, no excuse not to learn CSS though.
I agree with other posts, you need to have good css skills. Here is a cool site to check out how you site looks in different browsers http://browsershots.org/
just css and NOT the tables and the site should look the same in browser now a days it is not such a big problem few years ago it was a nightmare
If you have clean standard code then you should be pretty much the same in all browsers. There will always be some tweaks to be be made but as long as you do proper browser testing you will be fine.
It's impossible for a page to be look same on every browser but yet possible if you bring yourself css files for each browser. That's hard, you know. lol
1st of all try to install all popular browsers in your Computer. Check the latest updates and use most updated version. It'll best to test your designs. Then Try to make your design w3c validate using w3c tools. Once your design is tested, you can make some change in the CSS file ands use little bit of research on the net. For MSIE you can use a different CSS. and link it in the <header> tag.
Code for Strict HTML4 or 5 doctype. Validate your HTML. Design your site for modern webstandards browsers like Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. Use CSS3 to style your sites and avoid images for layout as far as possible (CSS3 offers rounding, gradients, shadows, typography etc). Use conditional comments to fix the f**k ups that are Internet Explorer 6/7/8... 9? Screen grab CSS gradients in Firefox and slice into strips then repeat-x or repeat-y as required for backgrounds in IE only style sheets. Add rounding to IE6/7/8 with Javascript. ??? Profit.
you can cross check the compatibility of your page with "browserscreenshots" google it. It support 60 different OS's and Browsers. You give the url and in half an hour you have your browsers screen shots. Very helpful.
For me the best way to test web site in many different browsers is browser sandbox. I'm using it all the time: www.spoon.net/Browsers
Thanks for the link... never used that one before... I'll be playing with that over the weekend. Cheers!