-
SURF SURF SURF! Look
at lots of pages and make notes about what you like and do not like.
Look at:
-layout
-color
-graphics
and animation
-busyness
-font
size and type
-content
-amount
of text and "empty" space
-loading
time (How long would YOU wait for a page to load?)
-
Set goals for your page in
terms of content, purpose, and audience.
-
Start small, uncomplicated,
and simple- you can make it bigger and better later. A single page
is a good start. It is easy to overdo the extras and add ons.
-
Find web server space.
This is simply space for your page to reside on the web. There is
lots of free space available for small personal webpages. Our favorites
are: Yahoo
Geo Cities and Microsoft
Network Homepages
Our Internet Service Provider
also offers free space for its clients.
-
Create, play, and experiment
with your text layout. You do not need to know HTML coding when you
first start out. (This is something you will pick up as you go along.)
Geo Cities and Microsoft Network both have templates and help in authoring
pages without HTML. You can also use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What
You Get) web authoring program. You may already have one on your
computer. Netscape Navigator includes Composer, Corel Wordperfect
includes Internet Editor, and Microsoft Office includes Internet Publisher
and Front Page. All of these tools do the HTML coding for you, allowing
you to create your text as you would for a word processing document.
-
Insert the extras. Keep
in mind that the larger these files are the longer your page will take
to load. Animation and sound files are big. The web authoring
program will have instructions about how to do this in its Help files.
You can design your own graphics if you have a graphics program like Photo
Shop, Picture It, or Paint. You can also find free extras on the
web to copy to your own files. You will need to make sure that these
are not copyrighted.
-graphics-
try AAA Clipart
or Barry's
Clipart Server
-animations-
try Clipart
Warehouse or Animation
Factory
-music-
try Midi
World or Planet
Midi
-sounds-
try WavCentral.com
or Beanie
Babies Animal Sounds
-backgrounds-
try Free Backgrounds.com
or Background Boutique
-counters-
try Bavenet
or BeSeen.com
-
Insert links to other web page
into your page. Again the program that you are using will have instructions
about how to do this in its Help files.
-
Preview your page to see what
it looks like online. Most programs have a Preview or Display button.
-
Transfer or Upload your files
to your web server. It will have instructions about how to do this.
If in doubt, ask questions- they've heard it all already!
-
Check that everything on your
page works the way you want it to work.
-
Announce your site:
-E-mail
your friends and family
-Join
a web ring which will link you to other similar sites.
(We have had tremendous support and exposure from the Grandparents'
Web Ring, but there are rings for every topic imaginable.)
Just search for (topic) web ring.
-Register
your site with search engines such as
Yahoo and
Altavista
(Every search engine has a Submit or Suggest a Site button.)
-
Continuously refine your page
and your web authoring skills.
-more
SURF SURF SURF!
-Click
on View and Page Source to look at the HTML coding for various
pages- you can pick up lots this way!
-If
you want to try a tutorial on HTML, go to
Bare Bones Guide to HTML
or Web Alley
-Elicit
feedback from other people- they see with different eyes!
If
you have a question that is not answered here,
(no
matter how small, silly, or obvious-
we've
asked them all ourselves)
please
e-mail Grammy Marie and Step-Grandpa Dan.
We
will try to help!!
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to Tips for Cyber-Grandparents
