How do you set up your own Web page? Paul Raeburn, senior editor of Business Week, wrote about this, and Ginny Hudak-David is current author of A Beginner's Guide to HTML. They were the Mar. 30 guests. The guide comes from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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OnlineHost: Welcome to Business Week Online! Eager to create your own Web page? Or bogged down in doing just that? Here's your chance for answers from Ginny Hudak-David, current author of A Beginner's Guide to HTML, available from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and from Paul Raeburn, senior editor of BW, who writes in the current issue [Apr. 7] about how he created his page.
JackBW: Good evening, Ginny David and Paul Raeburn. Thanks for joining us.
PRaeburnBW: Nice to be here, Jack.
JackBW: I'm Jack Dierdorff of BW Online, your moderator tonight.
HudakDavid: Pleasure to be here!
JackBW: Let's start with a question I have for Paul Raeburn of BW. Paul, you just wrote about creating your own Web page, more or less as an amateur. What was the biggest problem you encountered?
PRaeburnBW: I was truly an amateur. Although I cover technology, I know very little about the nitty-gritty of the Web. The biggest problem I ran into was learning the general structure of Web pages. The Web-authoring software I tested meant I didn't need to know HTML. But I still needed to learn some basic Web terminology.
JackBW: Here's an audience question, from July291969.
Question: What would you suggest to be the best program to make your Web site? (I use FrontPage97.)
HudakDavid: Well, I think you have three ways to go. You can hire someone to do it, you can use some custom software, or you can use the HTML codes. All three require time, and two of them require funding. If you're going to do very few pages (fewer than 20), you may just want to use some custom software. It is whatever seems to fit your budget. I have Pagemill (Adobe software), and it worked well for me. I was looking for a shortcut at the time. But it depends on what's comfortable. If you've spent some money on something, you should try to spend some time with it and get proficient.
JackBW: Let's try this question next. Paul, tell us your personal reasons first, and then maybe Ginny can give us some broader comments.
Question: Why would someone create a Web page in the first place? Because the Net is there?
PRaeburnBW: Well, that's an important question. You don't want to spend the time unless you answer it. I decided to do it to promote my book, "The Last Harvest." There are other reasons, too. As I wrote in BW, you might want to promote a small business, or use the page to help in a job search. You might also want to use it for fun, to promote a hobby, or to find others interested in a sport you like. But don't go into Web-page-building unless you have a reason. It takes too much time to do it as a lark -- unless you simply want to learn about the Web.
HudakDavid: I have to agree with Paul. You need a reason to put a page online. Because of my orientation working with NCSA, I think of the Web as a way to provide information. The information can be about anything -- a business, your family, a hobby -- but you do have to have a reason to have the information online. I think a lot of people create a page just to do it. But it would be best if you had something that you really wanted to make available to the public -- some real content.
JackBW: Casper2409 has a business reason for a Web page and asks this question.
Question: What tips do you have for business owners who want to make their own Web page?
JackBW: He's from New York.
HudakDavid: I would think long and hard about what information I want to get across to the people who come to my page. You want to make it as logical as you can -- keeping in mind your average reader. You can't assume that readers know about you or your company, so you need to provide that kind of very solid information for them. Sometimes it's just difficult to find a mailing address. So you need to think about how to best organize your page to make it more readily accessible.
Some people write their pages assuming that the public knows everything about the company or organization -- product line, etc. -- but the page designer must provide everything that an average person needs to know about the organization. The public should know where the hyperlink will take them. The page should also be attractive, if possible.
JackBW: AvaNJ25 wants help with the very first steps. Paul, what did you do first?
Question: How do you start creating a Web page?
PRaeburnBW: I read a few articles in the computer magazines, for starters. Then I got a hold of some Web-authoring software, just to take a look at it. I was puzzled by the software at first. But I must say, NCSA's primer on HTML helped a lot. You should take a look at it, on NCSA's Web site.
JackBW: That's A Beginner's Guide to HTML. Ginny is the current author. Let's give the address right here and now.
PRaeburnBW: The address is www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimer.html -- that's the address for the primer.
HudakDavid: One thing that is useful is that if they have a word-processing package already on their computer and they have access to a document listing the HTML code, people can get started right away. It isn't necessary to have Web-authoring software, but a lot of people buy it. When I started, I used a text-editor, and the very first edition of the Web primer. I didn't use Web-authoring software for a couple of years, and I created countless pages in those years. There is no question that if people do not want to become embroiled in HTML, Web-authoring software can be very useful.
JackBW: Jimpatton1 has the next question.
Question: What is the average monthly cost to operate a basic Web site?
HudakDavid: This is outside my realm of experience. You are probably not going to run a site on your own -- you're going to "rent" space from someone. So the question is, what is the cost of renting? As for the cost of renting, I don't know..
PRaeburnBW: If you are a member of AOL -- and you are -- you can get free space here. You might also find free space from your employer, or from an organization you belong to. I got free space from the National Association of Science Writers, for example. But the real issue is time. If you want to keep your site current, it's going to take you time to add things to it. Or you will have to hire someone to do it.
HudakDavid: I agree. It isn't sufficient to put out on a Web site some pages and let them sit there, unless what you are offering on you site is static information -- hobby, personal, etc. If you are running a business page, you need to make sure that everything is current so that people will continue to come back to it.
JackBW: Stevie84 has the next question, which follows nicely from the last remarks.
Question: Is a Web page hard to maintain?
HudakDavid: It can be very time-consuming. Not only are there mechanics involved in creating new pages and posting them, but you should really add new information to the current pages. You should check your links periodically, add images, and such. Web pages really should not look the same. You can't expect people to keep coming back -- if they see the same presentation constantly, they are more likely to forget you. If you are running a business, you need to have your pages look fresh and current. Dating pages with a last update is a good way to show a reader that something new has been added.
JackBW: Amuse80 in Murfreesboro, Tenn., asks this, for Ginny Hudak-David of NCSA and Paul Raeburn of BW.
Question: How do you add music to a Web page?
HudakDavid: There's an Internet Explorer 2.0 and later that has a tag <bgsound src=url> that will add a background audio to a document. That's one way of doing it, and probably the easiest.
JackBW: Here's another question about a nice feature to add to a page.
Question: How can I put a counter on my Web page that counts how many people have been there?
HudakDavid: Sorry, that I can't tell you. That is one of the most common questions I get, though. I believe it is a scripting issue. My recommendation is that if people find a Web page with a counter, they E-mail that person to find out.
PRaeburnBW: I looked into a counter for my page. I don't have the HTML handy, but it's easy enough to find on the Web. You can copy it from a page that has it, for one thing. The problem is that your provider has to be set up to handle this. The organization that is hosting my site has no provision for counters, so I couldn't add one.
JackBW: Cptoatmeal in Spartanburg, S.C., asks this one.
Question: What are your feelings about the Geocities home page program?
PRaeburnBW: I found out about Geocities only in the past few days. Apparently they offer free space. But I don't know much about it.
JackBW: You've already partly answered this from PulpMRH, but try it anyway.
Question: What is the best service to use to post a Web page for free?
PRaeburnBW: You should inquire about Geocities. But if you're on AOL, I'd suggest you start right here. The service is relatively easy to use.
HudakDavid: One thing to look into is if your community has a "freenet." It's usually a locally based organization that provides free access to the Internet. Some of them are community-based, and some are statewide. I would check in the library to find out more. The other thing is to check at organizations that you're a part of -- your work, school, etc. The people you meet in those types of groups would be very good to help you with questions as well.
JackBW: JaJa1125 has the next question.
Question: Where can one find good graphics for a home page?
PRaeburnBW: All over the Net. Be careful about who owns them. But I found a lot of interesting things on government sites. My book is about food and the environment, and I found a wealth of images on the home pages of the Agriculture Dept. The problem is, I haven't had time to size them and put them up. Alas.
HudakDavid: I agree with Paul that you need to be careful about the copyright on images. You can't assume that people are happy for you to download it, save it, and put it on your page. I recommend E-mailing the Webmaster or author of a page to ask permission. In my experience, for the work that I do for NCSA, organizations are very good about letting us use some images from various sites. We always credit them, thereby giving more exposure to their site. The other recommendation I have is to use a graphics software package like Adobe Photoshop to make your own graphics and images. The disadvantage for those of us who are "graphically challenged" is that your image might not come out as well as a graphic designers'. But if you create it, there is no copyright question.
JackBW: Speaking for Business Week, I would add that the same applies to copyrighted text you might want to put on a page. Ask the publisher or other copyright holder for permission.
JackBW: SMILE1or2 asked this question -- can you clear this up for us, Ginny?
Question: In my Web page, what shows up is the HTML code but not the programs and stuff it is supposed to activate, or browse to. Help me, please!
HudakDavid: My guess would be that you do not have all the appropriate tags and that the browser is not interpreting the file. You may not have saved it correctly, or you may not have the proper codes in there.
JackBW: WyattWWW in North Liberty, Iowa, has a good question.
Question: Do you see a future in Web design or Web presence businesses, or will the "do-it-yourself" software prevail?
HudakDavid: I think that people who can code in HTML and who can work with designers on classy and innovative Web pages are definitely employable in the future. If someone is going to do a lot of Web page designing and writing, you should get proficient with the HTML codes themselves. In my opinion, one drawback in Web-authoring software is that it's not as flexible as you can be thumbing through a book and looking through HTML codes or going online and seeing the newest innovations. If you see a Web page you like, you can mimic it by viewing the source document and mimicking the codes. You may not be able to mimic what you see there with Web-authoring software.
PRaeburnBW: I agree. I was tempted to begin looking at the source code behind pages I like. I'm not a programmer, but I got interested in how people did these things. One of the amazing things I learned about the Web was this: All of the source code, as Ginny says, is available to anyone -- that is, by clicking on "view" in your browser, and choosing HTML, you can see all of the work that people put into their pages. Nothing remains secret for long.
HudakDavid: I'd like to make a comment about Paul's use of the word "programming" in HTML. I see this a fair amount, and I always have a problem with the use of that word. If you think that HTML is programming the way you program in C++ or FORTRAN, you can throw away that idea. I prefer to think of creating a Web file as "coding" a file. You're really inserting specific tags around specific words or elements of a file. I don't have a programming background either. I'm very convinced that anyone who wants to learn HTML can. It is important not to be thrown off by the word "programming."
PRaeburnBW: Point well taken, Ginny.
JackBW: BobAB in Teaneck, N.J., has another question about Web design.
Question: As Netscape (Navigator) and Microsoft (Explorer) try to differentiate their browsers, will it become harder to do a Web page that looks good to people who use both?
HudakDavid: Absolutely. It's very difficult now to create a page that you can say with confidence will look good to people no matter what browser they're using. There are codes that one or the other implement. If you elect to use those, half your audience will see what you coded, while the other half won't. The good news is that an HTML tag that a browser doesn't understand is usually ignored. So nothing in a sense will "break," but the image that your page is creating will not be what you think it is for half the population. In an ideal world, HTML would be HTML, but we're not in an ideal world.
JackBW: Sorry, one person has asked the same question multiple times, and we've already answered it. Well, let's dip into the bank and take this one from Yultide while I try to undo the mess.
Question: I am familiar with HTML, but I don't really know which topics are best to make it on. Do you have any suggestions for me?
HudakDavid: People need to have a reason to create a Web page. You could offer to do a Web page for a local nonprofit organization, school system, etc., and I'm sure they would be thrilled. There are many organizations that are dying to get their content on the Web.
JackBW: IMKandyMA gives us a chance to talk about Ginny's book -- and others.
Question: Where is the best place to learn about building a Web page?
HudakDavid: I would recommend the primer. The primer is about 25 pages long if you print it out. It attempts to walk people through what HTML is, how you need to structure a document, and the most common tags people use to create a document. It can sometimes be daunting the first time you read through it. But if you take it slowly, and combine that with viewing the source file of pages out on the Web, I think you begin to see how HTML works and what the structures are. Once you have a pretty reasonable feel for HTML, using those two resources, then I recommend going to the bookstore and getting a more detailed book about HTML.
PRaeburnBW: You can also find beginners' books at the bookstore. Many of them are helpful, but Ginny's primer is the best thing going. And it's free.
JackBW: At this point, give us the addresses of your Web pages, if you will. Paul first?
PRaeburnBW: http://www.nasw.org/users/praeburn -- I hope people will take a look and send me their comments.
HudakDavid: For questions, send to pubs@ncsa.uiuc.edu
JackBW: Thanks so much for being with us, Paul Raeburn of Business Week and Ginny Hudak-David, current author of A Beginner's Guide to HTML, from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. See you all on your new Web pages!
HudakDavid: Thank you very much for having me.
PRaeburnBW: Thanks to all who joined us.
JackBW: Transcripts of this and all BW Online conferences and chats are available soon after the event. Look for them under Talk & Conferences on the BW Online opening screen. Thanks again for all the questions -- many more than we had time for. Goodnight to all!
Copyright 1997 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
