How to Make Your Own Home Page:
More Information

The Basics:

• Still confused after reading my document? You might check out the excellent Introduction to HTML (which also includes an intermediate section for non-beginners), or Web Design over at my friend Stonecutter's place.
• c|net how to make a home page
• Dr. Clue's HTML Guide is a very nice-looking, flashy site with some good (if somewhat unfinished) information. Hopefully this site won't be in a continual state of "Under Construction"....
• The HTML Primer
• The WWW FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
• How to Write HTML Files
• Introduction to HTML is VERY brief, but it has a lot of good links to more information
• Learning HTML at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences
• Windows users might be able to download and use The HTML Reference Library, which is a Windows HLP file

Understanding URLs:

• A Beginner's Guide to URLs, located on the NCSA Mosaic Help menu... it's very basic and easy to understand
• WWW Names and Addresses, URIs, URLs, URNs is more complicated, but you may still find it helpful

Reference documents:

• The HTML Quick Reference Guide, which provides a comprehensive listing of HTML codes (more useful the more experienced you become)
• HTML Elements List goes into even more detail
• The official HTML specification
• My a list of characters HTML can display using special codes (For browsers that do not display tables, here is the no tables version...)
• Web page color index (explains briefly how to add colors to your pages)
• If you understand how to program CGI for your server (I don't! :-> ) you might check out this Fill-out Forms Overview, or this page, which will help you decode the information your new form sends you!

What To Do, What Not To Do:

• This document named Composing Good HTML is a good one for anyone who is going to create HTML pages to download and read.
• CERN's style guide for online hypertext is very detailed; a lot of good information.
• Good and Bad Web Page Design has some simple guidelines to use when creating good-looking web sites (some of the examples they have up there make me wonder what they're talking about, though...)
• Hypercontent, Hyperjunk is apparently a site dedicated to critiques of Web design from folks who discuss hypertext on Usenet. Good pointers on what to do and what not to do. (If I break any of their rules, don't tell them, okay? <G>)
• Internet Advertising Hall of Shame is a regularly updated list of pages filled with annoying advertisements and/or lots of distracting moving graphics. It will educate you on what is TOO MUCH on a Web page.
• Resources on Web Style has, among other things, a bunch of top-ten lists about what is bad Web practice, etc. Very simple and straightforward.

For the over-Netscaped persons out there:

• This document is about reasons to become less Netscape-centric in your HTML; if your pages look good in Netscape but look awful to everyone else, you're losing a big part of your audience! (Includes the Netscape-Proof Page, which users of Netscape cannot read!)
• And if you need even more reasons to avoid over-Netscaping your site, read this essay.

Advertising:

• Before you submit, you might want to read through this Search Engine Tutorial
• Submit It!
• A1's Free Index
• Entity
• Home Page Links (add your own home page)
• Dan's Reciprocal Home Page List

Free Graphics sites:

• The Background Sampler at Netscape's site has some background GIFs you can use; these are pretty nice muted colors and would be great for backgrounds. Keep in mind, though, that these may become very popular very quickly; if you want a truly unique look, another option might be in order.
• Randy's Icon and Image Bazaar has lots of TERRIFIC free graphics and icons... almost any kind of graphic you could need he has. Many of them are public domain.
• There are a lot of great icons and backgrounds on the Free GIFs page in Ann-S-Thesia's Aesthetic Pharmacy; she has buttons that look like glass, stone, or blinking lights, as well as some other colorful bars and icons and some nice pastel backgrounds. Very different. The lady does great work!
• There are lots of very flashy graphics on the Stonecutter's site. This is pretty in-your-face stuff, but if that's what your page needs, his site is the place! (His pages tend to load slowly, so be patient.)
• This searchable site contains a ton of small icons that you could use as little somethings to click on... some are good and some are bad, but it never hurts to take a look!

Other useful stuff:

• Before you go full-time with your page, you might check with Doctor HTML. At their site you can submit an URL and check it for broken links (that lead to nowhere), bad HTML, bad spelling... just about everything but stupid content! ;->
• One of my favorite new tools is an HTML editor called AOLPress. It allows you to create and edit web pages with the ease of a word processor. And... it's FREE!
• Two Clicks Instant Tables will create tables from tab-separated lists. PC-World magazine has the same thing on their site.
• Map This! is a program that will help you create image maps. An image map is a single graphic that causes the user's browser to take different actions according to what part of the picture the mouse is on when the button clicks. For example... you could put a photo of your family on your home page, and set it up so you could click on each person and go to a page about that person. Map This! isn't the most powerful program of its kind, but it's FREE!
• If you already have server-side image maps made up (if you don't know, you don't have them) and you would like to convert them to client-side maps, I've found a page which will do the conversion for you. (I've done this by hand before; it's not impossible, but it's not my idea of a good time, either!)
• TalentCom makes an offline HTML viewer called iView that you can use for testing HTML pages if your browser loads too slowly for you; they also make a program called iComm that is a graphical browser for UNIX shell accounts!
• For all of you DOS users: if you're reading this. presumably you're at work, where you have a computer that was born this century (that's how I am right now!), or at someone else's house, and you're thinking that there's no way on earth you'll ever be able to play Internet until you get a new computer. To the contrary! There's a terrific program called Net-Tamer that will allow DOS users to send and receive email, Telnet, FTP, and even browse the Web! If that doesn't do it for you, check the DOS WWW Browsers page for some stuff you might find useful.

One last thing: