you can probably embed flash in your html files?
I dont think this got removed?

You can do those animated gif's or run javascript animations-

there are lots of cool things you can do with javascript embedded in a webpage:

http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/...ex.html#clocks
http://randomibis.com/coolclock/
http://www.schillmania.com/content/p...t-animation-2/
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex4/index.html

animated buttons:
http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/...ibutt_gen.html
buttons:
http://rainbow.arch.scriptmania.com/.../butt_gen.html