Thank yo so much for taking the time to post these tips. I will be sure to follow them. I won't be afraid to do experiments and hack. A lot. Thanks again very much!!!! I do look back at my old code and constantly improve it (to find out how crappy it was) and enhance it. I will also look or open sources. But please, could you recommend some specific open sources I could really use to learn? Thanks so much!!!
Look back on your old code, and marvel at how _wrong_ it was. Rewrite it better.
Read through open source code. I learned things from reading the Linux kernel source that made me absolutely destroy my C classes. I've learned dirty hacks from Rails' source that I use all the time.
But seriously. Hack lots of code and write lots of experiments.