Beginners Web Site
In addition to this site hosted by http://www.streamlinenet.co.uk/ I
manage a free space site at http://www.g4cus.freeserve.co.uk/ My site also contains pages of weekly amusing
contributions at http://www.sigord.co.uk/Artistry.htm Perhaps the younger Internet Enthusiasts will
bear with me if they do not embody all the latest gimmickry of more
sophisticated sites. Nevertheless for those contemplating building a Site for
the first time, for what it is worth, here are few tips.
Do not be deterred into thinking of creating web pages for
your own site or for another site. It is not all very complicated providing you
keep it fairly simple at least at first. Remember the important element in
creating a site is in the content, not the gimmickry trying to impress
visitors. If you are capable of creating a DOC file using Word especially
including say photos, then you must be capable of producing a web page, since
you can see all you need to do is ensure you save the result as a HTM or HTML
Web page. Note how the more elaborate and complicated a site involving a great
deal of Graphic, sounds, Java and Applets etc, take a great deal longer to load
than the simpler sites, perhaps containing say only text. This especially
applies if you are using a slow broadband or dialup connection. How often when
surfing, have you abandoned downloading a site, because of the time taken to display.
First decide what it you want to tell the big wide Internet world; if you
cannot think of anything, do not bother to produce a web site. There is enough
rubbish on the Internet already without cluttering it up with more! For a few
ideas, if you are really at a loss, and you have a family and children, and
friends etc using the Internet, then just put a number of photos up for them to
view/download. If you have a hobby, pass on your hints and ideas for others to
see, as I have done here. There is nice Free software for creating web pages
etc at http://kompozer.net/
but you need
to go online to use the Help notes.
Before rushing into buying Web space along with probably
buying a personal Domain Name, or setting up free space perhaps allocated to
you by your server, try creating a web page or two on your PC. This especially
applies to the opening page, which should always saved as an index.htm
to ensure the server hosting your pages etc allows visitors to log onto
it as your Homepage. You do not need to
learn the HTML Code, there is plenty of software available enabling you to
create pages, such as Microsoft Office containing Word or Front Page. You can
also create fairly simple web pages using any ASCII software such as Notepad,
once you learn the elements of HTML code, and your code will be far simpler
that that produced my MS Word or FrontPage etc. There is also numerous
Shareware etc available. The problem is that some of these programs are not
WYSIWYG - what you see on the screen is not necessarily what will appear on the
web such as with Word. Many do give you the option of feeding the page into
your default browser to see the true layout. Otherwise you will need to open
each completed page and any links to see how they display on you default
browser by just clicking on your HTM or HTML file. Some like FrontPage also
allows FTP uploading of your efforts onto your web space. I prefer to use a
Freeware FTP manager like WS_FTP to upload to this site, as it clearly shows
the directory on the hard drive holding the files on the left, and the files on
the web site on the right.
Study how the professional designers create sites, though
you do not have to abide by their popular trends of course. For example you
will notice in designing my sites I try to take account of visitors like me
with poor eyesight. So I avoid using print on dark backgrounds and print
smaller than 10 TPI. Likewise I try to
avoid presenting too much information on one page or a box, and the need to
keep scrolling down. In viewing other sites and the contributions on my site,
you will see you can insert Graphics, Sounds, Animations, Videos, presentations
etc, and also install links to additional pages, other web sites, email
addresses etc. Also you can allow visitors to your Site to download any kind of
file onto their hard disk as a ZIP file. Take care to check all links work on
your hard drive before you upload to the site, and check again online after
uploading . Something we all find annoying is a website displaying the message
'UNDER CONSTRUCTION'. If it is being amended, we should have unlimited time to
reconstruct a site while offline. Beware the Internet is not as lawless as some
would believe. You can be prosecuted for what you print, and for using such
things as Videos, Photos and MP3 Music subject to copyright without permission. There seems to be no copyright restriction on
using any of the thousands of MID music files available. You are also strongly
advised to install and run reliable anti virus and spyware software, and run
scans regularly, and quote this fact on your site.
When you have finished building your Web site at least for
the time being, you will of course need to find someone willing to provide you
with Web Space. Some servers allow Free Space, so long as you are a subscriber.
You can also buy annual space and a personal Domain Name such as Streamlinenet.
Be very careful NOT to choose a descriptive name someone else might wish to use
when the day comes you no longer own the name, especially if they find your
site is receiving numerous visitors. Remember you need to pay for the Domain
Name forever to prevent someone else using it, even so others can buy the same
name with a different extension such as ORG, CO, COM, NET etc, etc. Many web site hosts provide help in getting
your site mentioned on the popular search engines such as Google and Yahoo, but
you often need to pay handsomely if you want it to be given high priority on
their listing, if others have a similar name. So try to give your site a very
individual title, and remember the title and a following simple description is
more important to a search engine, than the name of the site. In fact you can
insert
Good Luck. Gordon
HOMEPAGE