Bob’s Web Production Tutorial

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This instruction is directed at people who are quick to learn but have no background in this field.

 

This tutorial will explain in the briefest way possible, in a clear step by step illustrated fashion, how it can be done with the most common tools available. Including how to produce your site, obtain a domain and hosting and then uploading. This course is designed for users of Windows XP or Vista with Microsoft Word. If you are able to send email and browse the web, you probably have enough skills to do this.

 

It is recommended to read the material below to understand how the web works in general but… if patience doesn’t allow or you feel you already know that stuff, click here to go direct to step by step web page build instructions.

 

This tutorial has been produced entirely on Word.

 

The Basics

Knowing some essentials will make the experience more satisfying as well as enable the trouble shooting required when things go pear shape on you. Be patient, it won’t take long.

 

Web pages are generally constructed in HTML, or hyper text markup language. This is the code language that assembles your page on a variety of web browsers. The web pages you view are not a ‘photocopy’ of a word processor type document. The web page is assembled on your screen from parts by interpreting a numerical code. That is what the browser does. Internet Explorer and Firefox are examples. The browser looks up the HTML page you seek which includes the code instruction of where everything is supposed to go, the actual text the page may have, and the whereabouts of any images that are included. As the page loads, the images are sourced from their separate folders in your web site or even other web sites, and placed on the page.

 

To view what a web page looks like before your browser assembles the parts, locate any web page on your browser, then click, view>source. A screen will pop up that shows the code only.  

 

URL is uniform resource locator, or “web address”.  This is the code that identifies and locates stuff. The URL for the home page on this web site is http://thecoastalpassage.com  and a typical page in the site may be http://thecoastalpassage.com/customs.html . The images that are loaded on a HTML page also have their own unique URL and that’s how the images on a page can be accessed from anywhere. If you go on a site that takes forever to load (I hate that myself) it may be in part  because the ads that appear on the page are being sourced as images from all over the place and it takes the browser longer to stick it all together.

 

A Pixel is the only unit of measure that means anything on the web. A pixel is a dot with unique characteristics that when assembled into a unit can depict an image or text. The screens that view your web site may vary in physical dimension but it’s the pixels that count. Smaller screens like laptops will usually have a little over 1000 pixel widths but then so can some physically larger screens.

 

More on images; there are a variety of image formats but lets stick to JPG or JPEG files for now as they are the most popular. The HTML code on your page allocates space for an image by it’s pixel dimension.  If you want your material to fit on a screen without having to scroll around to see it all you want to make certain the image isn’t too big.  Let’s assume you want to keep your web page about 800 pixel width. That is about the size of this page.  In that case you would want your images no greater then that. Also, you don’t  want to make your page slow to view or slow for you to upload to your web host. To learn about digital images and how to size them, click on this link.

 

And speaking of Links… the link I provided above is a Hot Link, that is, if clicked on, it will direct you to another URL which may be another page on this site or anywhere.. Absolutely anywhere.

 

Domain name.  That is what you call the address that you possess that is unique to you. The organisation, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) regulates all domain names in the world. Say your name is Tony and you want your site to be named “tonyswebsite.com”. You need to contact an ICANN licensed registrar that will first see if your choice of name violates someone else’s domain name. If not you will be granted the right to use that domain as long as you pay the annual fee which is about $10AUD for a service in the US or Europe and about $35 in Australia. These are common figures but they can vary wildly.

 

Hosting Service. That is the server that actually makes computer space available for your web site and may or may not also be your ICANN Registrar. This service can be in any configuration. There is so-called free hosting but very few things are actually free. The host may make money off advertising on your site and/or by tracking the activities of you and your visitors. They can even retain copyright of “your” material… I recommend a well priced private host. Keep control of your material and guard the privacy of you and your’s.  Australia is pathetic for hosting, don’t ask me why…  This web site was located in Australia years ago with the biggest name in hosting in the country but due to horrid service and ridiculous complexity was relocated to the US and with a savings of over 50%. A huge site with unlimited email accounts as a bonus is about $100AUD per year. You may consider the security and privacy of hosting your own email accounts as worth the yearly fee.

 

There, that’s it! Now I will ask you to click onto the next page and I’ll take you step by step with your word program and make a page with images and links to other pages and finally how to upload onto your site.

 

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