Resources

Is There Software that Can Speed This Up?

Text Editors:

HTML-Kit (Windows - free) text editor. Full featured — has Preview function. Recommended.

Notepad++ (Windows - free) from SourceForge

http://portableapps.com/ - Download portable versions (install on Flash Drive) of popular web applications, such as Notepad++ and FileZilla.

Smultron - Free (Mac - free) acceptable, but not great.

Adobe Dreamweaver - WYSIWYG editor for Windows and Mac. The "Industry Standard", but definitely not free! 30-day fully functioning demo available from Adobe.

Graphics:

Download Paint.Net (Windows) A free image manipulation with many of the capabilities of Photoshop. Recommended.

Download Free Gimp (Windows and Mac) image manipulation program.

FTP (File Transfer — all of these support the TLS/SSL protocol)
Download Free FileZilla (Windows and Mac System 10.5)
Download demo of Fetch (Mac) - ($29).
Download demo of Transmit (Mac) ($29)

 

Have Questions?

How do I turn in my work? Or what if I just need to download something?
What is FTP and how do I do it? Can this be done from home?

How do I scan an image in this classroom or in the lab? Tutorial from Dwayne Carter.

What resolution should I be using for images? 72dpi

What file format should my images be:
• In general, if the images is a photograph, or photographic in nature, it should be a web optimized jpeg.
• If the image is type, or an illustration with flat colors (such as a cartoon), it should be an optimized gif. Gifs can also be animated or transparent (with a color that does not show, so that background can show through).
• An optimized PNG 28 or PNG 32 can also be seen on the web, although not fully supported in Explorer 6, and usually comes out to be a larger file size than the previous formats mentioned.

How do I take a screenshot (image of the screen) in Windows? In Mac?

Who owns my work and how can I protect it? Can I use images I find on the web? In Print?
Intellectual Property Laws - http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/
2001/04/kafka/ - Your Work and Who Owns It. What are intellectual property rights, and how you can protect them.
Copyright Issues.

What if I have nothing written yet, but need to prototype a web site? Do what the pros do and use greeking. This is a folder — pick the one you want. Copy / paste.

Where do I get tiled body backgrounds? These are very small images that tile over and over to fill a page, a table, a cell, or a css-defined area. You can make them yourself in Photoshop or Fireworks, find free clip art, or download some free body background clip-art I have collected.

Where can I find a complete list of all the character entities that exist?
HTML 4.01 Entities Reference.

How do I submit a Web site to Google? Here is the link — it's easy. They don't require much information to send out the Googlebot, but make no guarantees of time or URL addition. You might also check out their Webmaster Central page for information, tips, and tools.

Where Can I Find...

Web HTML Tutorials

  • http://www.w3schools.com/html/ - Click on the "Try it Yourself" Link and select the part you want to know. You will find a screen on the left with the code and a screen on the right with the example. Try it yourself!
  • HTML Cheatsheet from WebMonkey.com. This one is a reference. http://www.webmonkey.com has a lot of other quick reference materials, as well as tutorials.

Web hexadecimal Color References:

Help With Color and Color Schemes

Free Images: (expect low res images and usage restrictions. Personal only)

Stock Photos ($$$)

  • Getty Images - The biggest, with the most diverse selection. Includes images from most of the other stock photo companies. A very good place to start looking.
  • Comstock
  • Veer - has both stock images and typefaces.
  • Fotalia - This one is cheaper than most; worth checking out. Also looks like a good place to get started selling photography.
  • There are so many others that the list would run quite long.

Dreamweaver / Fireworks Tutorials and Tips:

Dreamweaver 3rd Party Sites:
tutorials, answers to questions, serving the Dreamweaver community.

Search Engine Information:

  • http://searchenginewatch.com/ - Statistics and information about how to get a high search engine ranking. Don't be intimidated by the scope of the knowledge base on this site. The basics are easy to learn, then you can train to be an expert if you get really turned on by this stuff.
  • The latest Nielsen NetRatings statistics for search engines and portals, with a look at reasons for gains and losses.
  • http://www.bruceclay.com - Good information about getting ranked on the major engines, plus some freebies (Meta tag checkers, etc.) This is a web marketing company offering a paid service, but their information is easier to understand than most.
  • Google Web Master Central - Make your site more Google Friendly. Find information and tools.
  • Getting Started with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - The Ultimate SEO Checklist (article)

Multimedia Resources:

Domain Names:

Form Resources:
http://www.response-o-matic.com/ - Response-O-Matic will write the CGI script and process it for you on their server, then send the responses to the e-mail address you specify. You make up the form just the way you want it, using their template. Free with a small advertising message, or fee-based with no ads.

Rented Shopping Carts:

  • www.americart.com - I have a client who has used this rented (pay by the month or year) shopping cart for years. It has all the cart "bells and whistles", such as adding up multiple orders, secure server, figuring taxes and shipping, automatic email confirmation to the customer, etc. This is not a store. Your products are on YOUR html pages. The code that triggers the cart is in the "Buy" buttons on your page (slightly html intensive). Cart features are configured from a web form.

Free File Hosting: (ftp servers) For delivering large files. Usually too large to email. Most have limits of 100Megs.

 

 

 

CSS Inspiration

http://www.csszengarden.com/ - An experimental css site featuring the work of several designers — all limited to the same content! A demonstration of what can be accomplished with CSS. This one is an ongoing "competition".

Examples of well designed CSS constructed sites. Also tutorials and resources:

http://www.w3schools.com/css
/default.asp - CSS Tutorial from w3schools.com. This site has free tutorials on just about any web subject you care to learn.

General Inspiration

http://www.webstandardsawards.com/
Awards based on both design and coding

http://www.designinteract.com/ - Web information source for the Design Community.
http://www.designinteract.com/sow/
Website of the week from Communication Arts Magazine.

http://www.commarts.com/
online site for Communications Arts Magazine
http://www.commarts.com/CA/interactive/
View winners of CA Interactive Competition Awards - 12 years of awards.

http://www.w3csites.com/
W3C Sites is a collection of web sites created by designers that conform with the W3C standards.

http://www.time.com/time/2006/
50coolest/index.html - 50 Coolest sites of 2006 as picked by Time Magazine and CNN. These awards are mostly based on content and usability.

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design/
Principles of Design, as applied specifically to the Web. (article)

5 Steps to a better web portfolio (article)
http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives
/000935.html

Email:

www.automaticlabs.com - free encrypting of a mailto address. Their method uses javascript. It comes out quite incompresensible-looking, but seems to work well when cut into place instead of the regular html. (Includes not just the link, but the static text also). This is to hide an email address from spam bots.

www.Tinyurl.com - converts any long URL into a small easily-handled URL. Its completely free and avoids the problem of some mail programs placing a line break in the middle of a URL. It's basicly a forwarding web program.

http://www.returnpath.net/forwarding/
?reroute=Y - e-mail forwarding.

Miscellaneous:

http://www.netmechanic.com/ - This site includes a lot of good tools for site maintenance and promotion.

Statistics: www.thecounter.com - free statistics on browser usage, monitors, OS usage, etc., on a month- by- month basis.

Web Hosting: www.webhostingtalk.com/ - This is a forum. Who is who in the web hosting community — plus honest, if not brutal, discussion on hosting companies including those offering reseller type accounts.

Writing Well for the Web:
http://www.gooddocuments.com/homepage
/homepage.htm
http://webreference.com/content/writing/

Bandwidth Speed Test - http://bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

Autoresponder Service: http://www.aweber.com/

Metatags: http://webdeveloper.internet.com/html/
html_metatag_res.html

PDF (Portable Document Format): You can now create PDF files online for free at Adobe's Web site at http://createpdf.adobe.com . Of course, the Reader has always been free. There is a link to download it on this page, or go to the Adobe Homepage and find several links for Reader download.

Javascripts:
There are so many I hardly know where to begin.
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/
http://javascript.internet.com/
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/
     resources/scriptlibrary/javascript/
http://www.tudogs.com/jscript.php3 (a list of more resources)