Geek
Page
This page is for all the horrible boring technical stuff that most sensible people don't want to be bothered with.
I currently use a Macintosh iMac, this replaced an old Macintosh powerbook (165c) which was my first computer. Buying the iMac meant that all my old peripherals had to be replaced with USB versions, but this did not prove too expensive or troublesome. I do rather miss the old Stylewriter, and the USR Robotics modem which looked like the cheapest transistor radio you ever saw, but worked like a dream. Current peripherals are a scanner, and printer, both of which work okay.
I am currently doing an HNC in computing, the first option I did was publishing on the internet. I am also teaching myself how to code JavaScript but as it is my first experience of programming this is proving difficult. You can however expect me to create some more Javascript for this site. I would recommend that anyone interested in learning about the internet or web publishing gets some proper training. This need not cost too much, the HNC option I did only cost about £100, and was very worthwhile. By getting some proper training you make sure that you develop good habits rather than bad ones. You also get the incentive of meeting other people and benefitting from their experience and opinions.
A lot of people argue over how to code HTML. Some people argue that you need a WSIWYG editor which allows you to do it all on screen, other people argue that you should just code it all by hand using a simple text editor (ie Notepad for Windows or Simpletext for Macintosh). You can spend any amount of money on a WSIWYG editor, (I would really like a copy of Dreamweaver,) while every computer comes with a free text editor.
If you want to code properly, you really do need to get your hands dirty with a text editor. It is fine to use a WSIWYG editor to get the first draft of a page knocked out quickly, but to get it just right you will need to use a text editor.
How should you start then, with a text editor or a WSIWYG editor. No question about it, you really do need to start by using a text editor. Unless you use a text editor and understand how HTML actually gets put together to begin with, you are never going to pick it up. Get out your text editor and start off with a copy of Web Design in a nutshell by Jennifer Niederst, published by O'Reilly. Can't find a copy, try Amazon, but beg steal or borrow to lay hands on a copy. Then get coding. After a while you will be happy enough to use WSIWYG editors, but by then you will understand what they are doing, and more importantly what they are not doing, and you will be able to understand your code.
Other tips, try out the Webmonkey page for more talk about writing HTML, including their essential reference of colour codes. You may be able to print it straight off, I couldn't I had to update my copy of Internet Explorer and adjust the printer settings under print set up (File Menu) to get it to print the background colours.
because this is the language that the twenty first century will be
written in.
good HTML is HTML that is true to itself. HTML does not need to tell
people how to view it. You don't sell a magazine and stipulate where people
can or cannot read it, similarly you should not write HTML that tells people
how to view it. I want to determine how wide my browser window is, I want
to determine how large my font size is. I do not want people specifying
with tables and frames exactly how my page will look. I might want it a
bit narrower!
Everyone writes HTML to be read on their machine, then they start to think, just maybe, how it would look on another machine. If you keep your code simple and clear, it might look different but it won't look bad. Too many tables and fancy features and you are heading for problems. I write code on a relatively basic machine, so if I can see it, most people can, get the most expensive and upto date machine to write your code on and you will find that you have left half your audience behind.
everyone browses the web using a computer don't they, no they don't,
they are going to browse the net using televisions, mobile phones, microwave
ovens, keep your code simple and you are going to have a bigger audience.
The worst thing about most sites is their content. The HTML might be wonderful but the content is out of date, sketchy or just badly thought out. No wonder people browse the internet, most sites you would not want to stay five minutes on. Why would anyone want to spend time on a site with content that you can read in two minutes, navigation that is poorly thought out, pointless images that take forever to download and are dreadful even when you see them.
Get decent content on a web page, even if it is not for everyone, get something. If someone has come to your site they are obviously interested in what it has to offer, so write content, scan in images, put something there. If people are interested they will wait for images to download, they will take the time to read text. But for heaven's sake make sure and put a break between each paragraph and let people narrow the browser window if there is a lot of text. Reading text in a narrow window is so much easier.
I am probably in a minority of one on this, but I think there is nothing wrong with text on the Web, nothing wrong with text only pages, if anything there is too little text on the web. Sure graphics are nice and jolly, but actually having something to read is wonderful. Newspapers might not look like much, but people still buy them, if the content is what someone wants they don't need fancy images.
Beware of images, they take time to download, so, reuse wherever possible. But some people might have set their browser to not actually use their disk cache, so even a reused image can slow them down. So keep images small if they are purely decorative. Some images people will hang about for, if they want to see it, they will stay around, for example web cam images or something else we might have been searching for. On the other hand, no one wants to hang about for fancy graphics. What about all those wonderful pages at the start of commercial web sites that take forever to download because they are tables of images, and imagemaps. Waste of time. Use images wisely, for example if they are going to take some time to download, put some text in above them so that people can read that before they get to the image. You have a captive audience till the image downloads anyway so you might as well make good use of them.
If people are going to come back you have to give them something new. Therefore a what's new page is an absolute essential. Try and put dates on as much stuff as possible. just because it is old does not mean it has to be deleted, put it in an archive by all means, but no one is likely to be interested in future events if they have already happened. If you cannot commit to adding new content add random content using JavaScript.
Let people go back to the home page from almost every page, top left corner is a good place for an icon for home. Try and keep a logical structure to the site, people want to know where they are.
Check your own site, if you don't like it, no one else is likely to either.
And finally, there are no rules, only tools. If an HTML tag does something, use it for anything you can think of. Enjoy!
written 20/2/2000 - it was raining and cold -