html validators

Do any of you web designers use html validators? I'm having trouble finding the correct DOCTYPE to use for a website I'm doing at work. I'm down to 9 errors from 16. Does anyone use one that is offline and not one at www.w3.org?

Doctype I'm using is:

DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/loose.dtd

It's giving me errors on my meta tags, stating this doctype doesnt allow meta tags. The error is as follows:
document type does not allow element "META" here.

My meta tags are inside the head....i'm confused.

It's been a while since I've done any web work...do dont beat me up too bad.