Creating Web Pages For Dummies E-Book

Bud E. Smith

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 460

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

It's easy to design, build, and post a Web page with GooglePage Creator or CoffeeCup HTML Editor, but a friendly guide stillcomes in handy. Creating Web Pages For Dummies®, 9thEdition introduces you to Web design software and onlinepage-building tools, and walks you through the process in recordtime. Like its previous editions, this book gives you the skinny ongetting Web pages up and running with the least amount of hassle.But not just ho-hum Web pages! Yours will look fantastic and beeasy to build, and you'll even get a trial version ofCoffeeCup HTML Editor and visual design tools on the bonus CD.You'll learn to: * Get a simple page designed and online by the end of Chapter3 * Optimize photos, video, and audio for the Web and get them ontoyour page * Register for a Google account and use the versatile Google PageCreator * Build pages using basic HTML or CoffeeCup HTML Editor * Identify and apply elements of design, avoid common errors, andcreate pages that get noticed * Maintain control by creating and editing pages in HTML with atext editor * Understand how image file size affects your pages, how toupload photos to Flickr, and how to add sound and video files toyour Web pages * Develop your pages into a site with CoffeeCup HTML Editor andVisual Editor You'll even find out more about blogging and Blogger.com.The trial software on the CD is for Windows, but the instructionsfor building great Web pages work on any system! Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials arenot included as part of eBook file.

Leseprobe

Creating Web Pages For Dummies®, 9th Edition

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

Conventions Used in This Book

Part-y Time: How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Create a Web Page Today

Part II: Getting the Content Right

Part III: Your Site in WYSIWYG

Part IV: Your Site in HTML

Part V: The Part of Tens

Part VI: Appendixes

Icons Used in This Book

Part I: Create a Web Page Today

Chapter 1: Web Publishing Basics

Web Basics 101

Understanding how the Web works

Getting up URL-y

The “For Dummies” Way to Web Publishing

Making simple things simple

Making difficult things possible

Types of Web Sites

Personal sites

Picture sites

Topical sites

Business sites

Entertainment sites

Thinking Your Web Page Through

Ask “Why am I doing this?”

Don’t spend too much time on design

Put the good stuff first

Think twice about download times

Know your audience

Use “text bites”

Look at sites you like

Plan for ongoing improvements

Decide how you define success

Chapter 2: Designing Your Online Look

You Got the Look

Three Key Principles of Design

Achieving simplicity

Producing predictability

Creating consistency

Avoiding Common Design Errors

Slow-loading pages

Ugly color combinations

Small text (and large text, too)

Safely Breaking the Rules

Organizing Your Page with Tables and Frames

Creating simple tables

Layout with tables

Friends don’t let friends do frames

Chapter 3: A Fast and Easy Page with Google Page Creator

Getting to Know the Creative Capabilities of Google Page Creator

What’s in a Google Name?

Registering for a Google Account

Creating a Google Page

Part II: Get ting the Content Right

Chapter 4: Words and Blogs

Getting It Write for the Web

Web realities

What HTML Lets You Do with Text

Using Existing Text

How to reuse right

Avoiding existing formatting

Getting Copyright Right

Discovering the Wonderful World of Blogs

Finding blogs to read

Finding software for blogging

Using Google’s Blogger.com

Setting up your blog

Adding content to your blog

Chapter 5: Using Images and Uploading Photos to Flickr

File size (still) matters

Making an image smaller

Using GIF and JPEG graphics formats

Example: Resizing and saving a screen capture

Obtaining and Creating Images

Designing with Graphics

More on download speed

Avoiding three big mistakes with images

Flickr forward

Flickr flaws

Uploading a Photo to Flickr

Modifying Photos on Flickr

Taking Flickr Further

Chapter 6: Playing Sounds on Your Site

Compressing and Decompressing Sound

Using Sound within a Web Page

Getting, Creating, and Including Sound Files by Download

Getting an MP3 file

Creating an MP3 file

Posting a Sound File on MySpace

Join the MySpace cadets

Chapter 7: Screening Videos on Your Site

Keeping Online Video Small, Short, and Sweet

Why Web video is compressed

Keeping your video clips short

The Role of YouTube

Finding Videos for Your Site Online

Capturing Videos from a Camera

Uploading a Video Clip to YouTube

Part III: Your Site in WYSIWYG

Chapter 8: Using a WYSIWYG Editor

Choosing WYSIWYG over Plain Text

Working within WYSIWYG

Plusses and minuses of CoffeeCup HTML Editor

Taking a sip from the CoffeeCup

Chapter 9: Creating a WYSIWYG Page

Get Ready: A Refreshingly Brief Description of HTML

Viewing HTML documents

Setting up a Web page

Formatting Web Text

Using HTML Lists

Linking to Outside Web Pages

I link, therefore I am

A simple link in a CoffeeCup

Chapter 10: Graphics and Media, WYSIWYG Style

Including Images in WYSIWYG

Adding Sound to Your Page

Adding Video to Your Page

Chapter 11: Laying Out Your Site in WYSIWYG

Using mailto Links

Internal Links within a Web Page

Creating a Navigation Bar Using Text

Part IV: Your Site in HTML

Chapter 12: Using a Text Editor

Choosing Plain Text over WYSIWYG

Working within a Text Environment

Plusses and minuses of Notepad as a text editor

Hitting the high notes in Notepad

Chapter 13: Creating a WYSIWYG Page

What the HTML You’ll See in a Text Editor

Viewing HTML in Web pages

Setting up an HTML page

Formatting Web Text

Creating HTML Lists in Notepad

External Web-page Links

Don’t think, just link

A simple link in Notepad

Chapter 14: Graphics and Media in HTML

Including Images in a Text Editor

Adding Sound to Your Page

Adding Video to Your Page

Chapter 15: Laying Out Your Site in HTML

Using mailto Links in HTML

Internal Links within a Web Page

Creating a Text Navigation Bar

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: Ten Web-Publishing Dos and Don’ts

DO Think About Your Target Audience

DON’T Forget the Basics

DO Think Before You Create

DON’T “Borrow” without Asking

DO Use Links to Outside Sites

DON’T Abuse Graphics and Multimedia

DO Test Your Pages

DON’T Break Netiquette Rules

DO Ask for Feedback

DON’T Let Your Site Get Stale

Chapter 17: Ten Places to Host Your Page

Google Page Creator

Network Solutions

Fasthosts

AOL

Yahoo!

Blogger

WordPress

MobileMe

Weebly

Ning

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Make Your Page a Site

Specialize

Let Go of Your Tool

Copy Your Page to Your Hard Drive

Use FTP

Get a URL

Add a Blog

Add Other Tools

Add Navigation

Quote Others

Keep Plugging Away

Part VI: Appendixes

Appendix A: Web Words Worth Knowing

Appendix B: A Quick Guide to HTML Tags

Appendix C: About the CD-ROM

About CoffeeCup

CoffeeCup HTML Editor

CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer

CoffeeCup Color Schemer

Creating Web Pages For Dummies®, 9th Edition

by Bud E. Smith

Creating Web Pages For Dummies®, 9th Edition

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2009 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Bud E. Smith is a computer book author with more than 12 years of publishing experience. Creating Web Pages For Dummies, 9th Edition, is one of over a dozen books Bud has written; his Wiley Publishing, Inc. titles include Internet Marketing For Dummies and Web Usability For Dummies. In addition to writing books, Bud has been a computer magazine editor, product marketing manager and project manager for online uses of video.

Bud got his start with computers in 1983, when he left a promising career as a welder for a stint as a data-entry clerk. Bud then moved to Silicon Valley to join a startup company, followed by work for Intel, IBM, Apple, and AOL. His work and interests led him to acquire a degree in Information Systems Management from the University of San Francisco and a master’s degree in Information Systems from the London School of Economics.

Author’s Acknowledgments

The author thanks Steve Hayes, acquisitions editor, and the staff that helped produce this book: project editor Nicole Sholly, technical editor James Kelly, copy editor Barry Childs-Helton, as well as the many other people responsible for page layout, proofreading, indexing, and graphic art.

The Web was initially built more for love than for money, and that tradition has been continued by the many people who have generously given their time and support for this book. I especially thank the providers of Web tools who have supplied the world with an ever-growing range of tools, and the Web authors who have let me use their sites for figures in this book.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Project Editor: Nicole Sholly

Executive Editor: Steve Hayes

Senior Copy Editor: Barry Childs-Helton

Technical Editor: James Kelly

Editorial Managers: Kevin Kirschner, Leah Cameron

Media Development Assistant Project Manager: Jenny Swisher

Media Development Assistant Producer: Angela Denny

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Foxworth

Senior Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Erin Smith

Layout and Graphics: Claudia Bell, Ana Carillo, Reuben W. Davis

Proofreaders: John Greenough, Debbye Butler

Indexer: Word Co. Indexing Services

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Joyce Pepple, Acquisitions Director

Composition Services

Gerry Fahey, Vice President of Production Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

It may be hard to remember, or it may seem like only yesterday, but some years ago, the personal computer was introduced. The rise and rise and rise of the personal computer — with maybe an occasional stumble but never a real fall — seemed certain to be the most important social and technological event at the end of the twentieth century. From the “two Steves” — Wozniak and Jobs — and their Apple II, to Bill Gates’s Windows 95, it seemed nothing could ever be bigger, or more life-changing and important, than PCs.

But people do talk. In fact, talking is one of the main things that people are all about, and in the beginning, the personal computer didn’t let you interact with others. However, first with modems, and then with networks, and finally through their combination and culmination in the Internet, personal computers became the tools that opened up a new medium of communication. The most visible and exciting part of the Internet is the World Wide Web. Now communication, not computation, is the story. Computers are still important, but mostly as the means to an end; the end result is to enable people to interact.

If the most exciting channel of communication is the Web, the means of communication is the Web page. Ordinary people demonstrate amazing energy and imagination in creating and publishing diverse Web home pages. And although ordinary people have a desire to create Web pages, businesses have a need to set up shop on the Web. So the rush to the Web continues, often with the same people expressing themselves personally on one Web page and commercially on another.

So you want to be there, too. “But,” you ask, “isn’t it difficult, expensive, and complicated?” Not anymore. As the Web has grown, easy ways to get on the Web have appeared. And I discuss the best of them in the pages of this book.

About This Book

It’s about 340 pages.

Seriously, what do you find here? Easy ways to get published on the Web for any kind of Internet user we could think of. Quick ways to get a blog, photos, or videos online. Ways to make your first Web page rich with carefully arranged text, graphics, and multimedia, plus the information you need to go beyond your first Web page and create a multipage personal or business Web site. And free online tools, which we describe in the book, to help you go as far as you want to go in creating a Web site.

Foolish Assumptions

Lots of good information is in this book, but almost no one is going to read every word of it — except our long-suffering editors. That’s because we cover Web page topics from beginning through intermediate levels, including how to publish a Web page via Google, how to use several different tools, and some Windows-specific and Mac-specific stuff. No one needs to know all of that! But anyone who wants to get a Web page up on the Web does need to know some of it.

But what do you need? We assume, for purposes of this book, that you have probably used the Web before and that you want to create a Web page. We further assume that you are not yet a Web author, or that you’re fairly new to the process. To use the information in this book, here’s what you need:

Access to a personal computer, preferably one running Microsoft Windows XP or Vista.

The CD-ROM only works with Windows. If you have a Macintosh or a Unix/Linux system and an Internet connection, much of this book works for you as well, but you won’t have access to the tools on the CD-ROM, nor to most of the online service or Web-page creation tools that we describe, except those available directly to your user community on the Web.

Access to the Web — either through an online service or an Internet service provider (ISP).

You should be running a Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox, or a browser provided by an online service.

You should already have spent at least some time surfing the Web, or be willing to do so as you gather information and examples for your Web page.

In other words, if you’re wired, or willing to get wired, you’re in. With that, the door to this book is open to you, whether you want to create your first Web page or add new features to one you already have.

The figures in this book show up-to-date Windows screen shots for a consistent appearance. We wrote most of the instructions and steps in this book to work equally well for Windows and the Macintosh, though the CoffeeCup instructions are for a program that runs only on Windows.

Conventions Used in This Book

When our publisher first told us that this book was going to have conventions, we got out our silly hats and our Democratic and Republican paraphernalia, but apparently she just meant that we had to be consistent. The conventions in this book are standard ways of communicating specific types of information, such as instructions and steps. (One example of a convention is the use of italics for newly introduced words — as with the word “conventions” in the first sentence of this paragraph.)

Here are the conventions for this book:

Things that you, the reader, are asked to type are shown in bold.

New terms are printed in italics.

Information used in specific ways is formatted in a specific typeface. In this book, one of the most common kinds of information displayed this way is HTML tags; that is, formatting information used to create Web pages (see Appendix B for a more complete definition). An example of a tag is <title>.

We also use a special typeface for URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), which are the addresses used to specify the location of Web pages. For example, the URL for the For Dummies Web site is www.dummies.com.

The Web is fast-paced and evolving. By the time you read this book, some of the URLs listed in it may have changed.

Representative browser versions appear among the figures.

Menu selections look like this: File⇒Save. This particular example means that you choose the File menu and then choose the Save option.

Related, brief pieces of information are displayed in bulleted lists, such as the bulleted list that you’re reading right now.

Numbered lists are used for instructions that you must follow in a particular sequence. This book has many sequential steps that tell you just how to perform the different tasks that, when taken together, can make you a successful Web author.

To make the steps brief and easy to follow, we use a specific way of telling you what to do. Here’s an example of a set of steps:

1. Start your Web browser.

2. Go to the Web sitewww.tryfreestuff.com.

Note: This site is not real, just an example.

3. Click the link that matches the type of computer you have: PC, Macintosh, or Unix.

Part-y Time: How This Book Is Organized

We wrote this book to a carefully plotted, precise, unvarying plan, with the predictable and predicted result: the book you’re holding in your hands now.

Wait a second. Isn’t it true that the Web is changing every day, that Web sites appear and disappear like so many jacks-in-the-box — or whack-a-moles, if that’s a more familiar example to you — and that Web companies can pop into and out of existence in a few weeks? So, what was that about a plan?

Well, okay, we did change things a little along the way. Maybe a lot. But we did have a plan behind the book, even if it was finalized in a conference call at 5:00 this morning. The following sections explain the parts that make up the book.

Part I: Create a Web Page Today

You probably want to dive right into becoming a Web publisher. So we start the book with some ideas about what to do in your Web site, and then give specific instructions on how to get your first, simple Web page up. You can start with Google Page Creator and get a firm handle on designing your Web page, no matter what tools you use.

Part II: Getting the Content Right

What goes into your Web page is the core of your efforts, and you can use newer, social-networking tools to work with all the different kinds of content you might want. For example, consider creating a blog to help you generate interesting text, using Flickr and YouTube to post interesting photos and videos, and more.

Part III: Your Site in WYSIWYG

CoffeeCup HTML Editor (and its many younger brothers and sisters) has been around for years, quietly getting better and better and more and more numerous. CoffeCup is a What You See Is What You Get, or WYSIWYG, tool that helps you work on a screen that looks like your Web page and handle many of the messy HTML details for you. This book includes the excellent CoffeeCup Editor trial software so you can get started today. Now I’m including CoffeeCup tools in this part of the book and on the CD-ROM. If you’re running a Windows PC, fire it up and go to town!

Part IV: Your Site in HTML

Many Web developers don’t want to use a tool, even a cool one like CoffeeCup HTML Editor, at least at first. They want to dive right into the “bare metal” approach and work with HTML in a text editor. I’m a bit like that myself, and no Web author ever suffered from learning HTML toowell. Here’s where you can develop your skills.

Part V: The Part of Tens

A Top Ten list is a great way to make complex information fun and easy to remember. My Top Ten lists show you key dos and don’ts of Web publishing and more.

Part VI: Appendixes

Appendixes in books are usually like appendixes in people: funny little things that get taken out of the patient in a hurry if they act up. But for this book, I pack in great information that can really help you. In Appendix A, a glossary defines Web publishing terms that may be confusing to you. In Appendix B, you get a comprehensive — yet brief — guide to HTML tags, the most basic tools that developers use to create today’s Web sites. Appendix C tells you about the CoffeeCup programs on the CD-ROM.

Icons Used in This Book

All Dummies books include icons that point you in the direction of really great information that’s sure to help you along your way. Here I briefly describe each icon used in this book.

Marks information that you need to keep in mind as you work.

Points to things you may want to know but don’t necessarily need to know. You can skip these and read the text, skip the text and read these (if you’re into geek-style light reading), or go ahead and read both.

Designates the tools included on the CD-ROM.

Flags specific information that may not fit in a step or description but that helps you create better Web pages.

Points out anything that may cause a problem.

Part I

Create a Web Page Today

In this part . . .

Jump right in with simple Web page publishing. Decide what to put on your page, and then use a simple Web-based service to get it online today. Make your page look good. Your reward: Telling your friends, family, and colleagues your Web address tomorrow!

Chapter 1

Web Publishing Basics

In This Chapter

Getting started with Web publishing

Putting together a Web page the easy way — and the easier way

Examining types of Web sites

Reviewing Web page guidelines

The Web is an incredibly easy way to get your message — any message — out to anyone in the world who’s interested in it. By putting up a Web page you can stay in touch with friends and family, entertain people, help yourself get a job, or help yourself do your job. You can start a business, grow a business, or just have fun expressing yourself.

Having a Web page is also ever more important as social networking and online selling sites — eBay, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and many others — continue to grow. You need a base that establishes your online presence, and any online commercial interests you have, across all the “walled gardens” that each want you to spend all your online time within their boundaries.

Nearly a million people have purchased this book since its first edition more than ten years ago; my readers have used every technique I describe in this book — and more — to get their first Web pages up and running. By reading this book, you’re starting on a path that many, many people before you have followed to Web-page success.

Web Basics 101

You may have begun using the Internet and the Web without really getting a chance to learn how they work. Knowing how they work can help you become a better Web publisher and Web user. Here’s a brief, to-the-point description. For more information, you can search the Web; the World Wide Web Consortium site at www.w3.org is a good place to start. (Start with the HTML section.)

Understanding how the Web works

The Web, formally called the World Wide Web, is a collection of a bunch of text and graphics files (plus some other stuff) that make up Web pages. Web pages are combined into linked sets of pages called Web sites. People often use the term interchangeably, but technically, a Web page is a single HTML text file, possibly with one or more graphics and other features added; a Web site is one or more Web pages linked together. These terms will be explained further later in this book.

Underlying the Web is the Internet. The Web depends on the Internet to connect its many files together and to allow people to get to the Web. E-mail is a separate function that also depends on the Internet. And FTP (file-transfer protocol) is another Internet capability, used to move files from one computer to another.

The Web is defined by two specifications: HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The underlying idea behind the Web is hypertext — text that can contain links to other pieces of text and other files, such as graphics files, stored anywhere on the Internet. The Web got its name from the way all the links connect the pieces of text together like a huge spider’s web.

You look at Web pages by using a program called a Web browser. A Web browser uses HTTP to request a Web page from a Web server. The Web page, in turn, uses HTTP to request any other files, such as graphics images or ads, that are part of the Web page. After you request a Web page, your Web browser pulls the files that make up the Web page from one or more Web servers and assembles those files into a single page displayed on your screen.

The most popular Web browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer; Mozilla Firefox (the successor to the once all-conquering Netscape Navigator); Opera, a standards-compliant Web browser from a small company; and Safari, Apple’s browser for Macintosh computers.

After a Web browser requests a Web page using HTTP, HTML steps in. Each Web page has as its core a text file written in a format called HTML (for HyperText Markup Language), which usually includes links to one or more graphics files. HTML defines a Web page’s appearance and functionality. Actually, HTML doesn’t precisely specify the Web page’s appearance: Different Web browsers display various HTML commands differently. Also, users can specify how they want things to look on their own screen. So what one user sees when she looks at a Web page may be different from what another user sees. (Part IV goes into detail about HTML.)

Getting a Web page up on the Internet is surprisingly easy. In fact, if you’re in a hurry, you may want to go straight to Chapter 3 to use Google Page Creator. Follow the instructions there to get your first Web page up in about an hour.

Getting Webbed

This book talks a lot about the Web, but doesn’t discuss how to get on the Web as a user. Even if you’re on the Web already, perhaps through a connection at work, you may also want to get on the Web from home. How do you do that?

There are a wide variety of broadband offerings — some tied to cable TV or satellite TV services, others to phone offerings, and even a few to mobile phones. There are wireless hotspots that may give you inexpensive (or even free) Internet access. And yes, there are still some dialup — that is to say, slow — offerings left.

The most popular online service is still America Online (AOL). AOL has robust Web-publishing features, coverage around most of the world, good spam blocking, kid-safe controls, and many other good features. However, it tends to be expensive, and is gradually losing subscribers.

It’s quite likely that your Internet service provider, whether it’s a big name (such as AOL and MSN) or a little guy, offers you space for your Web site — and perhaps helpful support services as well. Check your ISP’s offerings as you decide how to get your first pages up on the Web.

Getting up URL-y

The Internet is the giant computer network that connects other computer networks around the world. At its base, the Internet is just a giant mechanism for moving files from one computer to another. It finds files by using a kind of address called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator — which sounds like something the Army invented to track down clothes!). The acronym URL is usually pronounced “you are ell,” although some pronounce it “earl.” Most people today use the term “Web address” or “Internet address” instead of “URL,” but as a Web publisher you should know all of the terms.

The address that you type to get to a Web page is a URL. For example, www.dummies.com is the URL for the For Dummies site. A URL consists of three parts (see Figure 1-1):

Protocol: The name of the communications language that the URL uses: HTTP (used on the Web), HTTPS (for secure Web pages), FTP, and so on.

Domain name: The name of the server the file is on, such as dummies.com.

Pathname: The location of the desired file on the server.

Figure 1-1: URL-y to Web, URL-y to rise.

The “For Dummies” Way to Web Publishing

Reading this book is going to make you a Web publisher — because anyone who puts up even a single, simple home page is a publisher on the World Wide Web. Congratulations in advance!

Because there’s so much you can do on the Web these days, including on social networking sites such as YouTube (for videos) or Flickr (for photos), I have split the description into two basic pieces: getting your content together (Part II) and getting it up on the Web (Part III or Part IV). Part III describes how to get your Web page up using the tool included with this book, CoffeeCup; Part IV describes how to “go to the bare metal” (well, the bare fiber-optic cable) and use HTML directly.

Given the many ways you can work, and the way different Web sites and different tools handle some of the process for you, but not all of it, it’s important to understand the underlying steps that define Web publishing. The steps may have different names, or be intermingled with each other, but they’re always basically the same. Here they are:

1. Create the HTML text file that’s the basis for your Web page.

2. Create or obtain the graphic images you’ll use to spice up the appearance of your page.

3. Create a link to the graphics in your HTML text file so they appear where you want them to.

4. Preview your Web page on your own machine.

5. Find Web-server space.

6. Transfer the HTML text file and the graphics files to the Web server.

7. Check that your new Web page works correctly now that it’s online.

If you use an easy-to-use tool such as Google Page Creator (see Chapter 3), the steps given here are combined and most of the details are handled for you. However, it’s good to know what’s happening “behind the scenes,” to help avoid problems or to help you tackle a more complicated site later.

Web terms to know

To clear up how I define and use some Web terms, here’s a brief primer:

Web page: A text document that is published on a Web server, has HTML tags in it, almost always includes hypertext links, and usually includes graphics. When you click the Back button in your Web browser, you move to the previous Web page that you visited.

Web site: A collection of Web pages that share a common theme and purpose, and that users generally access through the site’s home page.

Home page: The Web page that people generally access first within a Web site. You let people know the URL (address) of your home page and try to get other Web page creators to provide links to it.

HTML tags: Brief formatting or linking commands placed within brackets in the text of an HTML file. For instance, the <b> tag tells the Web browser to display text after the command in bold type; the </b> tag turns the bold off. (See Part IV for more on HTML.)

These steps are usually simple if you’re creating a basic Web page. However, they do get more complicated sometimes, especially if you’re trying to create a multipage Web site. This book tells you several different, easy ways to get content up on several different kinds of sites or create a Web page, and gets you started on expanding your Web page into a multipage Web site.

When you create a Web page that has complex formatting, or that mixes text and graphics, you’ll want to test it in the most popular Web browsers. You should download Microsoft Internet Explorer, the America Online client, the Firefox browser, the Opera browser, the Safari browser, and/or other tools.

For an example of a good-looking Web page, check out the For Dummies home page, shown in Figure 1-2. It has an attractive layout, interesting information, and links to a great deal more information on the For Dummies site and other sites. The For Dummies Web site is professionally done, but you too can achieve good results with a reasonable amount of planning and hard work. In this book, I concentrate on helping you create a simple, individual Web page and combining several Web pages into a closely linked group of pages called a Web site, such as the For Dummies site.

Note: The For Dummies home page is shown in Microsoft Internet Explorer, the most popular Web browser. For consistency, I use Internet Explorer for most of the Web-page images in this book.

Figure 1-2: The For Dummies home page shows Web-publishing skill.

Making simple things simple

If all you want to do is create a simple “I exist” Web page, either for yourself or for your business, you don’t have to go through the rigmarole of figuring out HTML or learning a tool, finding server space, and so on. Chapter 3 helps you use Google Page Creator, a tool from the leaders in Web search, Google. To see how easy publishing on the Web is, just turn to Chapter 3 and get started. You’ll be a Web publisher with just a couple of hours of effort.

Making difficult things possible

If you want to concentrate on one type of media at a time, Chapter 4 talks about writing words for the Web and shows you how to create a blog; Chapter 5 talks about creating images, especially photos, that are online-ready, and tells you how to manage photos on Flickr; Chapter 6 discusses making sound files and tunes Internet-friendly, and how to get a tune up on MySpace; and Chapter 7 focuses on videos — how to trim their massive storage requirements and get one up on YouTube.

Seeing HTML

When Tim Berners-Lee invented HTML at CERN (the European particle-physics research facility) in the late 1980s, he probably never imagined that so many people would be interested in seeing it. Today, most browsers include a command that enables you to see the actual HTML source instructions that make the page look and work the way it does.

For example, in Internet Explorer, choose View⇒Source to view the underlying HTML file. You see all the HTML tags that make the Web page look and act the way it does. However, some HTML pages are “cleaner” and easier to read and understand than others. Keep looking until you find some pages that make sense to you.

After you open the HTML file, you can edit the text and the HTML tags, save the file, and then open the file again in your browser to see how it looks with the HTML changes. Don’t publish someone else’s page, of course — but other than that, experimenting in this way is a good way to learn.

Part III — Chapters 8 through 11 — shows you how to use the CoffeeCup editor to pull your content together into a Web site. Part IV — Chapters 12 through 15 — shows you how to do the same in “pure” HTML.

Types of Web Sites

The Web offers examples of nearly every communications strategy known to humanity, successful or not. But not every example of a Web page that you find online applies to your situation. For one thing, the resources of different Web publishers vary tremendously — from an individual putting up family photos to a large corporation creating an online commerce site. For another, several different types of Web sites exist, and not every lesson learned in creating one type of Web site applies to the others.

The major types of Web pages are personal, picture, topical, commercial, and entertainment sites. Increasingly, you can combine different kinds of sites in mashups — sites that combine different kinds of technologies. (The Web itself already does that, but a mashup takes combining technologies to another level.) In the next sections, I describe some of the specific considerations that apply to each type of Web page and not to the others. Decide in advance what type of Web page you want to create, and look for other pages like it online to use as models.

Personal sites

Personal Web sites can have many goals. Often, your goal is simply to share something about yourself with coworkers, friends, family, and others. Personal Web pages are a great way for people to find out about others with similar interests and for people in one culture to find out about other cultures. You can also use a personal Web site to share family photos and events — kind of like a holiday letter that’s always up to date. Figure 1-3 shows part of the personal site of Web designer Jeff Lowe, who’s piloting a remote-controlled blimp in the pictures. You can find the site at www.jefflowe.com and the blimp image among the pictures at www.jefflowe.com/site/pictures/index.php.

Creating a personal Web site is a great deal of fun and great practice for other work. But personal Web sites are often left unchanged after the initial thrill of creating and publishing them fades. Be different — keep your Web site updated!

As personal Web sites evolve, their creators tend to add more information about a single key interest, in which case the pages may become topical Web sites (described later). In other cases, the Web site creator adds more information about professional goals and accomplishments, in which case the Web page becomes more like a business Web site.

Figure 1-3: Jeff Lowe pilots the blimp (and posts his résumé too).

Are personal Web sites still relevant?

Most of the activity you hear about on the Web these days relates to large, commercial sites, political sites, advanced technical sites, and so on. Individuals are still contributing a great deal of content but it’s through more specialized sites — photo sites, video sites, social-networking sites, and so on. But these tend to appeal to only some people rather than to everyone.

Personal Web sites have gotten somewhat lost in the shuffle as better-funded sites belonging to companies and organizations get all the attention. Never fear; personal Web sites are still fun and easy to create. (And did I mention that they’re fun?)

Part of what’s driving the continuing interest in personal Web pages is that more and more people all over the world have access to the Web. (The Web passed 1 billion users a few years ago, an important milestone.) The chances are better than ever that a high percentage of your friends, family, and colleagues can visit and appreciate your site. So don’t be put off by the tremendous growth of business and large organizational sites on the Web. The personal and fun side is growing, too; it’s just getting less media attention than the commercial side.

Following a few simple rules helps make your personal Web site more fun and less work:

What’s on first? No, no. What’s on second . . . The upper part of your Web page — the part that appears first when you bring the page up on-screen — needs to make the main point of the site clear. If the main point is “you,” the first thing people see should be your name, your photo, and links to some of the things about “you” that are in your site. If the point of your site is a topical interest, business interest, or professional self-promotion, the first area of the home page should make that clear, too.

Keep it simple. Start with modest goals and get something up on the Web; then create a “To Do” list of ways in which to extend your site. Consider spinning off commercial and topical pages that reflect your desires and interests — into separate sites by topic — rather than creating a sprawling personal Web site.

Provide lots of links. One of the best ways to share your interests is to share information about Web sites that you like, as well as books and other resources. You can put this list on your one and only Web page or make it a separate page that’s part of a personal Web site. If you develop a thorough, carefully updated list of links for a specific interest area, you create a valuable resource for others.

Consider your privacy. A Web page is just like a billboard — except that 1 billion or more people can see it, not just a few hundred. Don’t put anything up on your Web page that you wouldn’t want on a billboard. Identity thieves can do a frightening amount of damage with your full name, your address, the name of your employer and your mother’s maiden name. And think twice before putting up information about your kids and other family members: You may well be willing to compromise your own privacy, but you shouldn’t make that decision for other people.

Picture sites

Lots of people just want to share pictures online; it’s a lot easier to share pictures on the Web than to mail them around, or wait until you get together with people.

You can use any of the Web-page creation tools described in this book to create a photos-mostly Web site, although Flickr (see Chapter 5) is for this purpose alone.

Sharing pictures is often a great joy, but also often quite boring for other people. Here are some tips to help keep your site interesting:

Get organized. Think about how photos are going to be organized. Basically, your site should be like a magic photo album — with new content at the front, and as many older photos as you want at the back. So use the home page to highlight the new stuff, and keep the older stuff moving back into archived folders.

Be a photo editor. “Less is more,” up to a point, even on sites designed to show off the grandkids’ latest photos to proud grandparents. Usually, one or two photos of a given spot or event, whether it’s a birthday party, a visit to an historic site, or something similar, are enough to give a flavor of it.

Watch the megabytes. Use a photo-editing program to save your files as JPEG images with the appropriate degree of compression (Chapter 5 has details). Even though many Web users today have broadband access, you don’t want to freeze out the people who don’t, and even broadband runs slowly sometimes.

Protect your identity. Make sure not to provide identifying information such as anyone’s full name, address, or phone number. This helps prevent identity theft.

Getting personal with blogs

A Web log, or blog for short, is a sort of online diary that usually includes links to Web sites that the user has recently found interesting — thus the term Web log. Blogging, or maintaining a Web log, is a whole new form of Web publishing.

You can create a Web page or Web site that’s nothing but a blog, or combine blog content with traditional content. Some blogs are extremely personal — sometimes uncomfortably so. Web logs are also used in big Web sites, such as major newspaper sites. In other words, Web logs cross the boundaries between personal sites and other categories — including thetopical and business categories — and some of them are pretty entertaining as well!

I have the somewhat old-fashioned view that you probably would benefit from knowing about Web-page creation in general, not just blogging, so I defer a detailed discussion of this larger topic to Chapter 4. But if your whole reason for wanting to create Web pages is to create a blog to call your very own, please skip ahead and read Chapter 4 now, and then come back here when you want to find more about Web pages in general.

Topical sites

That’s “topical,” not “tropical.” A topical home page is a resource on a specific topic. A topic can be an interest or volunteer group to which the author belongs, in which case the page may grow over time into something much like a business Web site. (Creating a Web site for a group is a tremendous contribution that you can make, but it can be a lot of work; watch what you may be getting yourself into!) Or your topical Web page can be about any interest, cause, concern, obsession, or flight of fancy that you have. In this sense, the Web is like an out-of-control vanity press, allowing anyone to go on and on about anything — sometimes offering something of great value, oftentimes not.

Making a second career out of maintaining and extending a topical Web site is easy, but the pay is usually low. Here are some things to consider when you create a topical Web site:

What’s on first? As with a personal Web page, the title of a topical Web page and the first screen that users see need to make unmistakably clear the topic that the page covers. And, to the extent possible, they must describe what resources the Web site offers about the topic.

Keep focused. A topical Web site loses some of its value if it goes beyond a single topic. How many of the people who share your love for Thai cooking also share your abiding interest in rotifers (microscopic creatures that are too small to use in most recipes, Thai or not)? If you have two different interests that you want to share on the Web, consider creating separate Web sites.

Create a succession plan. If your Web site grows beyond your capacity to maintain and extend it properly, find someone to help out or to take it over. The first person you should ask about taking over is anyone who’s complaining that you’re not extending the site fast enough! Decide what role you can handle and then ask for help in doing the rest.

Business sites

Business Web sites, also known as commercial sites, constitute the 50,000-pound gorilla of the Web, with a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money devoted to them. Business Web sites cover a wide range of styles because their goals and the expertise and resources behind them vary so much. This book provides enough information for you to create a competent “Web presence” site with several pages of contact and company information. But even these kinds of sites vary quite a bit, and you need to be sure that your company’s page is well implemented.

Figure 1-4 shows the BATCS home page I created along with my wife, Olga Smith, a publisher and tutor. It’s created with an online tool provided by the Web host, and is a bit “rough around the edges” from a design point of view, but full of content useful for the purpose. Go surf around the BATCS site to see what a site designed and implemented by someone with a job to do (rather than all the time in the world to show off Web-design skills), looks like: www.batcs.co.uk.

The first question to ask about a business Web site is “Who can access it?” Some sites are intended for the World Wide Web and everyone on it; others are on the World Wide Web but are password-protected or otherwise restricted in access; still others are on private networks and inaccessible to outsiders. These inaccessible networks are described as being “behind the firewall.” Any Web page that isn’t accessible to everyone is considered to be on an intranet, if access is limited to one company, or an extranet, if access is limited to a group of companies that are business partners.

Despite the wide variety of business Web sites, following just a few rules can help you create a page that meets your goals:

What’s on first? A business Web page should make the name and purpose(s) of your business immediately clear. Also, the site should provide easy-to-find information on how to contact your business or organization and what products and services it offers.

Get the right look. Telling someone you don’t like his Web site is like telling him you don’t like his haircut — he’s likely to take it personally. But an ugly Web site, like an ugly haircut, can make a permanently bad impression. Make sure that the look of your Web site is up to the professional standards set by other aspects of your business.

Figure 1-4: The BATCS home page gets the job done.

Get permission. Unless you own the business, you need to ask for permission before putting a company page on the open Web. You also need to make absolutely sure you have the permissions you need for any images or documents that you use before you publish your Web page.

Inside or outside the firewall? Deciding who gets access is tricky. For example, a small amount of otherwise-closely-held information can make a site more valuable, but the presence of confidential information also prevents you from opening up the entire site to the broader public. Implementing access controls can also be difficult. Investigate how to password-protect a site, or ask a network administrator at your company whether you can physically control access. For instance, you may be able to selectively allow access based on which network the user connects from.

Find experts. Businesses similar to yours — or even colleagues, if you’re in a large company — likely have Web sites that have a purpose similar to yours. Look to similar sites for guidance and inspiration.

Monitor usage. Investing time, energy, and money in a business Web site requires a trade-off among the Web site and other things that those resources could go to. One of the crucial questions you may need to answer in order to justify Web site maintenance or expansion is how much use the site gets. Investigate ways to measure the use of your site. A good way to start is a basic hit counter, such as the free one you can find at the following URL: www.statcounter.com.

Seek out additional resources. This book focuses on hands-on creation of single Web pages and simple Web sites. For a larger business site, you need access to additional information to help you with the planning, hosting, and maintenance of the site. Consider purchasing HTML, XHTML & CSS For Dummies, 6th Edition, by Ed Tittel and Jeff Noble, for more information on the HTML specification, and Web Marketing For Dummies, by Jan Zimmerman (both books from Wiley), for more information on planning and creating a business Web site with a marketing bent.

Having a Web site that’s too obviously “handmade,” rather than professionally created, can be embarrassing for a business. However, many sites are going “back to the future” with a simple, clean look that’s light on graphics. So how do you decide whether to make your look fancy or simple? The best way to get a quick reality check is to look at some competitors’ Web sites and make sure that your initial site looks roughly as good as theirs. And remember: Often the most embarrassing thing is having no site at all.

Entertainment sites

Entertainment is one of the top few reasons why people use the Web, and the number of entertainment sites continues to grow. Humorous pages and shared games on online services are now a major presence on the Web.

People have high expectations of entertainment sites — which can make them some of the most demanding to create. Here are a few suggestions for creating entertainment sites:

Don’t start here. Don’t try to figure out Web publishing by creating an entertainment site at the outset. It’s a very demanding task. Try another type first and edge your way into entertainment.

Keep it fresh. How funny is a joke the second time you hear it? You have to either frequently update the content on your entertainment site, or allow participants to provide new content through their interaction with one another — neither option is easy.

Push the technology. Interactivity is also key to entertainment, which means going beyond HTML and static graphics. You probably need to figure out and use at least one more advanced Web technology, such as Flash, to make a fresh and interesting entertainment Web site.

Is your page cybersmut?

For most Web page publishers, the best policy with respect to putting anything potentially offensive in your Web pages is to keep your site clean. The use of gratuitous sex and violence in your Web pages will simply put off many people and put you and your Web site in a bad light.

But what if the sex or violence is not gratuitous and is actually central to your point? Then send the author and publishers your URL so that we can see it for ourselves. No, seriously: Be sure to make the first page a home page that specifically warns readers that they may find your content offensive. Doing so lets them gracefully opt out before they view whatever you show.

Also, consider your environment — the site the content appears on. MySpace pages are full of dubious content, whereas YouTube tries to keep things cleaner. A business site should not have anything potentially offensive. Don’t have your content violate the local etiquette.

Even this enlightened approach may not be enough, however. Some Web-server owners will drop your page if it violates their rules, and several countries have laws that specify what can and can’t be on a Web page. Be sure to find out about the rules and laws that apply to you before you put anything questionable on your Web page.

Let the technology push you. The technology can give you ideas that are in themselves pretty funny. Try using Java to create a Three Stooges-type animated routine, or use ActiveX to create a virtual-reality environment that includes funhouse mirrors. (I describe both Java and ActiveX in Appendix A.)

Thinking Your Web Page Through

A Web page or Web site is basically a publication, though an interactive one. Thinking about a few simple principles now, before you start, can help make your Web page much more interesting and useful to the people who see it. You can also revisit this section after you put up your initial Web home page; use these guidelines to revise your page and make it even more interesting and useful!

Ask “Why am I doing this?”