Web Design General Info, Tools and Resources

I compiled this list for a group I used to facilitate. I'm leaving it on the web in case it is useful to others.

This is a list of a few helpful sites I've found.

Web hosting
Where will you put your website? The easiest, often cheapest, answer is to start with the webspace provided by your internet service provider. Most providers include web space as part of the package when you subscribe for e-mail. You will need to contact your ISP or check their website for information about how to access your space. If you run out of space, want your own domain name (e.g. www.yourname.com), or want more options and control, it may be time to look at signing up for a web hosting service. There are free options (usually involving pop-up ads) and there is paid hosting. Here are a couple of listings of web hosting companies.

Now you know where to put it - it's time to design it.

There are lots of tools available that can help you create a website. Most newer word processors will save as HTML. Netscape Communicator includes an editor. Frontpage Express is available with Internet Explorer, and there are more sophisticated tools like Macromedia's Dreamweaver and Adobe's GoLive which will help you manage a large site easily. There are good HTML editors out there too, like Homesite and Arachnophilia.

Tutorials

Here is a site by the NetObjects folks with lots of good web advice: http://www.efuse.com/
Need a tutorial on any subject, web or otherwise? Try http://www.tutorialfind.com/tutorials/

FTP

File Transfer Protocol programs let you copy your files to your web server space. Some to try are: WSFTP http://www.wsftp.com, CuteFTP http://www.cuteftp.com, FTP Voyager http://www.rhinosoft.com
And for you Mac users, Fetch http://fetchsoftworks.com.

 

HTML

Color and Graphics

Usability

Web Design Sites

Web Publications

Other Useful Sites
Counters: You can probably put a counter on your page using a simple cgi script (check with your ISP or web hosting provider) but if you want more information than they provide, here are some which will collect information on who is visiting your site (not the actual people, but their domain, their browser version, etc.)

Want to restrict access to part of your page?- here's a tutorial on that.

How to design your site to increase search engine traffic.

See how accessible your site is to people with disablities.

The WorldWideWeb Consortium
http://www.w3.org/

Information on the Target Tag
http://home.netscape.com/eng/mozilla/2.0/relnotes/demo/target.html

Kath Thorn's Web Toolbox on her Geekline site
http://www.geekline.com/toolbox/
Many of the same links I have below, but much better organized!

ZD Net Software Library
http://www.zdnet.com/swlib/
This is a pretty good list of software available for web editing.

Adobe Web Center has information on their products but also some nice freebies you can use: