What Works? - April 1997 Issue

James Kings

Roger Thompson

Lisa Jensen

Barb Wood

What Works? April 1997 Issue

Crimson Star is a computer consultant and photographer who lives in Jasper National Park, Alberta. Phone: (403) 852-4111, Fax: (403) 852-4350, E-mail: cstar@incentre.net, Web: www.crimsonstar.com

Business or Pleasure?: Part VI

Your goal is still to determine how a Web site really works, and if a professional Web site can benefit your business. You want an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that will host your "test" Web site. Yes, it is still a test Web site even though it will be open to the public.

Most ISPs offer personal Web sites to customers, for free, or for a small additional charge. These personal Web sites are usually limited to one or two megabytes of disk space, and may not be used for commercial or professional purposes. CompuServe offers its customers a free Web site, limited to 2-MB of disk space, for personal or business use.

THE SITE FOR BUSINESS

Other ISPs offer a variety of business Web site plans starting at about $25/month, although $350/month might be more typical for a site that provides lots of extras (which we haven't discussed).

You do not need to place your Web site with the same ISP that you use for normal Internet access. I usually use three ISPs, one local and two international.

WHAT IS HTML? Well, there are two answers. Some techno-buffs say HTML describes a Web document's structure. Others say it describes a Web document's appearance. Today, thanks to standardization, we can say HTML handles both structure and appearance.

HTML was invented by an Englishman, Tim Berners-Lee, as a program for displaying plain texts and hyperlinks in the old-fashioned Web browsers. In 1993 the first graphics-based browser, Mosaic, was introduced. At first, there was no standardization to HTML, then Netscape and Microsoft came along with their browsers, and a standard was born. Everyone followed in line.

Today, thanks to HTML "editors" (software that relieves you of learning HTML code), you can easily create complete Web sites and high-impact pages. HTML is evolving much the same way word processing evolved in the last decade. It's getting better and better.

Once you sign up with an ISP, it is a simple matter to reconfigure your browser to access your new ISP over your modem. It is also fairly simple to copy your Web pages to the new ISP and bring your Web sites to life. Remember to visit my Web site for links to design guidelines, search engine links, graphics info, free promotional ideas, link exchanges, additional HTML tags and other neat stuff.

Note: This completes Crimson Star's 5-column series on how to build a Web site.
Want to learn how Digital Photography can help you in your stock photography operation?

Check our Crimson Star's next section, "Digital Basics."

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