These are my all time hates:
Permanently overloaded servers that drip-feed things 1k at a time, then lock up just as the page nears completion.
Sites festooned with animated graphics, adverts, cruddy music and other gimmicks that take forever to load.
Enormous tables, particularly with graphics as they don't display anything till everything is loaded.
Inadequate site maps so you cannot find anything you want unless you 'drill' endlessly down through from page to page, then have to laboriously retrace your steps to start again if it's not what you expect.
Graphics that are entirely pointless: neither functional, decorative nor informative.
Graphics that are either too small to be discernible or too big to be downloadable and viewable.
Lists of links - which are just copies of other peoples lists of links and invariably useless.
Gaudy, muddled jumbles of fonts, graphics, tables, boxes and styles that are more designed to provoke migraine than ease navigation and just serve to make things confusing.
I'm afraid the list could go on and on, but as this industry is in it's infancy I suppose I shouldn't be too harsh. All the above faults are tolerable in the quirky sites designed by individuals, where they to some extent add to the homespun charm of things. However the very worst offenders are some of the big corporate sites and the fact that they have been created by some so-called expert at great expense makes the crime even more heinous. Aaaargh! I could do better blindfolded and at half the price! In fact I think it's time I imparted a few tips, born of bitter experience and bleary-eyed nights in front of a monitor:
Websites - How to do it if you are not a Nerd:
1. Do not buy or read any books on HTML or how to design websites.2. Download a few Web Page creators for free from somewhere like TUCOWS. Most will let you use them for a month.
3. I've tried them all. Hippie and Hotdog are my favourites. I've even registered Hippie after my 50 free go's.
4. If you don't like one, just junk it and try another. There are so many you need never ever spend a penny.
5. Download a free graphics editor as well. Thumbs is great. You can manipulate images in batches in all sorts of ways.
6. Find a site you really like the look of, or a selection of pages where the layout is good. Steal them all.
7. Raid sundry other sites for their nifty graphics - flashing 'New' signs, nice borders and backgrounds etc.
8. How? Your browser should have a 'save pages' and 'save image' command. Stuff them all in a useful directory.
9. I use Opera - it's very fast, endlessly configurable, simple to use, free for a while and cheap after that.
10. All of the above will avoid you giving more money to the already disgracefully wealthy W. Gates Esq.
11. Fire up your web page maker and load the stolen page that will be the basic first 'index' page.
12. Scrap the text and images you don't want, substitute your own, shuffle things round a bit. Save it as 'index.html'
13. This is your 'home page' that Joe Public gets to first. It links to all the rest of your site. Keep it simple.
14. If you get befuddled, fire up the programmes tutorial to find out how things work. It's all easy.
15. You need to learn very little - just how to position and format text and place images and links. Forget the rest.
16. Tables are confusing and best avoided - if not, copy something simple like mine and add your own text and images.
17. It's all very repetitive and time consuming. Make some blank template pages that you can re-use.
18. It's easier to manage and edit lots of small, linked pages than several giant scrolling ones.
19. Before you get too carried away, draw a 'map' of all your site and decide on logical page names that mean something.
20. Don't just call them page1, page2.... you will never remember where anything is and get very annoyed!
21. Try and keep a uniform scheme and structure that's easy on the eye and simple to modify.
22. Put links at the bottom or side of each page that take you everywhere, easily and predictably.
23. Try and keep thumbnail images to about 10k if possible and gimmickry to a minimum.
24. Big pics for viewing should be a size that makes it worthwhile, but over 150k is verrrryyyy sllllowww.
25. If using big pics make sure the punters have something useful to read while they load.
26. I know it's a bit late, but does you site have a point, use, opinion, message or some unique character?
27. If not, think seriously why you are doing it - if for fun or practice, that's OK by me....if not...are you mad?
28. Check all the links and pages when run on a couple of different browsers - Netscape, Explorer etc.
29. There will be loads of mistakes and dead links. Don't despair. Be methodical and go over every page carefully.
30. Remember! use page names and graphics titles that are easily identifiable - there will be dozens eventually.
31. Make sure all file names and extensions are in LOWER CASE. Many (usually Unix) servers don't like capitals.
32. If you include a page of links for gods sake make them relevant and check they really exist; regularly.
33. Most Internet Connection Providers give 25Mb+ free space. That's not a lot if you have loads of images.
34. When you are sure everythings OK use your Web program or Internet Providers Utility to upload your pages.
35. The programs provided to do this are usually crap, confusing, fiddly and frustrating. Just persevere, you'll get there.
36. Log on and view. Run through everything laboriously. Check load times and things. Isn't it slow?
37. All that effort for this? - fear not, all artistic endeavour is initially followed by self criticism and despair.
38. Tinker with image sizes, page sizes, layout till all OK. It's best to have lots of small pages, easily linked.
39. If you have a strong and resilient constitution install a 'counter' to log visitors. Your IP will tell you how to.
40. Every time you visit you will see it has increased. Hooray! Fame and fortune at last.
41. Depression, as it dawns that it is only counting your visits to see if it has moved. No-one will visit for months.
42. Download a free utility to advertise your website to the many Webcrawlers a Search Engines that Index the Web.
43. After about a year, if your lucky, when you search on one of these your site will pop up! Fanfares, Trumpets etc!
44. You will know you have made it when you start getting bizarre requests and inappropriate email.
45. Initially these will emanate from confused backwoodsmen and porn hunters. Revise your content appropriately.
46. It's time to get a domain name. 'John_Smith.com' will have gone. You will have a long and fruitless search for another.
47. 'Soiled_Underpants.co.uk' may not have. Think laterally. Anything snappy and memorable will have to do.
48. Well that's about it. There is nothing very difficult, just time consuming and frustrating, why did you worry?
49. But remember, a Website is like a puppy - not just for christmas, but for life. It needs tending - regularly.
50. The final accolade - somebody recently recognised me from my Website!!.. and from those photos.. AArrrghh!!!!
Tips for Using Images:
Any tinkering with images degrades the image quality. The ideal situation is to scan the image at a resolution that results in exactly the size of image you want. This is pretty difficult and means you have to allow for cropping etc, and when you compress it into a JPEG the final file size can vary a lot. I have given up and scan everything initially at 300dpi (dots per inch) or photograph it on 'fine' with my Nikon Coolpix 950 (the raw images are 1600x1200 pixels). Many image editors do all sorts of dreadful things as you fiddle with the image, but Thumbs 4.0 produces consistently good final results. Crop the image as appropriate. Most can do with 'sharpening', but the default is usually too harsh. Thumbs has a 'sharpen less' filter that seems ideal. Don't be tempted to do this till last, as you want to degrade the raw image as little as possible before you shrink it. You usually need to increase contrast a bit, and occasionally saturation for rather pale prints. Colour casts can be a problem, particularly if photographing under anything other than daylight. I used to tinker with the colour balance and get very confused till I discovered the 'saturation' control that variably bleaches the colour out - it works great for all monochrome and most coloured images. If you can't be bothered with all this fiddling, Thumbs has a 'general enhancement' filter that does the whole lot, but it is a bit much for most images. Rotate any images as needed. Now do a bit if shrinking to the size you want. It's easiest to choose a percentage; 75, 50, 25 - simple multiples give the best results. For full page images you want a picture no higher than 600 pixels or wider than 800 (most people should be using this - 640x480 is jurassic). Most graphic programs show this as you choose the shrinkage. There are different algorithms for resizing pictures and they greatly affect the final result. Thumbs has a 'best for sizing' one that produces great results, particularly when producing thumbnails for indexes. You now need to save it as a JPEG (or GIF). You have a choice of degree of compression. Setting to 80/100 usually shrinks the file to a quarter of the original size or more and has an indistinguishable effect of the image quality on screen. You can go up to 60/100 with little degradation, but surprisingly little additional shrinkage in file size. Pictures with lots of areas of similar tone shrink most, those with lots of fine hatching and detail least. It can take a bit of trial and error to get things down to a manageable size, but with a bit of practice you can guess the settings and get it right first time more often than not. Once you have all your main images saved and the right file size, you need to make some index thumbnails. Don't be tempted to use the main files and just reset the size by using an image command on the web page - the result is awful and the file takes longer to download. It's no hardship to make another set of little files(5-10k) - Thumbs has a 'batch process' facility. I just highlight the lot, set it to shrink to 33%, 'best for sizing' add suffix 'sml' for 'small' added to all the filenames and compress at about 70/100 then press a button. Hey presto, a whole load of renamed copies at one tenth file size! If you are bone idle, you can 'batch process' all the originals as well, just using a 'general enhancement', shrink to say 50% and compress 70/100 to produce your main big images, but I find the extra additional attention is worth it. Doing 10 or 20 at a sitting is plenty, and after a while you will soon find all your webspace has gone. It's also worthwhile for security and insurance purposes, plus if you are very anal you can link them to a database of all your prints for posterity.Photo Credits:
Top: Oops, I've escaped from the 'secure' ward again........
Bottom: Which one is me? The days when 'politically correct' was but a gleam in a politicians eye...god, how embarrassing..
(Pictures courtesy of Dr Kathryn Evans)
Top: Oops, I've escaped from the 'secure' ward again........
Bottom: Which one is me? The days when 'politically correct' was but a gleam in a politicians eye...god, how embarrassing..
(Pictures courtesy of Dr Kathryn Evans)
Gallery