Kewl People, Places and Things
A Virtual Tour brought to you by Amelia
Below is a somewhat annotated, reasonably well organized list of good useful links. I hope you find some good information here and if you find any of my links or information helpful you are now obligated (on your honor) to help someone new get online, let's keep building this global community.
When you click on the link the site will open in a second browser window, you can then return here to click on another. I always have lots of windows open when wandering the web.
Web design is a field that is constantly enhanced through innovation. I am amazed at the creativity of many designers out here with me in cyberspace. Keeping up with the techniques, ideas and new requirements will always be a continuing project. The are some of the sites and programs that have been helpful.
Who goes first? No question about that - Lynda Weiman is the reigning monarch of web design IMHO and she has filled her site with some of the best information. Get on over to lynda.com and see for yourself. Her specialty is web graphics and she has written a number of great reference books on the subject. Her brother Bill (Webbie) ain't no slouch at CGI either. He hosts websites and is now running four good mailing lists related to all this good stuff.
Perhaps you would like to enhance your HTML coding and add some extra features beyond basic Notepad? I have tried many and my absolute favorite HTML editor is Homesite, now from Allaire. I am sorry, Homesite is not wysiwyg, but I am a purist and have seen (and corrected) the awful coding created by some wysiwyg editors. Bad Frontpage bad... An alternative that combines both of these editing styles in Dreamweaver from Macromedia, it is fast becoming a favorite among designers.
Flash is taking the web by storm. This is the technology to learn for the future. Absolutely amazing what is being created with Flash 4 as I write this.
Graphics programs, Adobe Photoshop still rules, and is getting better and better with web related activities. For the beginner, I always recommend Paint Shop Pro, a much shorter learning curve and price tag. The new kid on the block is Fireworks from Macromedia, amazing potential here, handles both vectors and bitmaps within one program. Fireworks allows the creation of many complex web images and buttons with comparable ease. I am enjoying it and my Visual Quickstart Guide to it!
Two places to go for cutting edge information, tutorials and answers are Webreview and Webmonkey the How-To Guide for Web Developers. My own discussion of Bringing Your Images to the Web gives a good basic introduction to the differences between .gifs and .jpgs and when to use what.
I have heard some good reviews about the courses being taught online at ZDU. Lots of subjects, not a lot of money.
Myself, I favor the full immersion teach yourself method. On that note, the absolutely best books for learning all of these subjects are the Visual Quickstart Guides by Peachpit Press, get one in every flavor.
CGI can best be learned by looking at working scripts. A great place to see such things is Matt's Script Archives
Everyone with a web page needs to have it on a server somewhere. Now you could choose to build your own system -I hear a good Sun set-up can be had in the range of $30K. I have no links for that, back here in my world we pay others to do this. Gem lake Design happily provides this service to its clients, or stop by a page of hosting suggestions I accumulated a while back. Domain names come into the picture then. Want to know if your favorite word, term or odd alphanumeric sequence is available? Go directly to Internic's interface to whois and find out for yourself. I think McDonalds.com is taken, sorry.
Business Women's Interest
My favorite local site is DC Web Women an organization dedicated to women in technology in the metropolitan Washington D.C area. Their membership discussion list is excellent.
WomanCONNECT.com the first stop for women on the internet is really filling up with useful and interesting information. WWWomen a huge search engine filled with information and links.
The Canadian Business Network includes a wealth of information, Vada is doing a great job. Of special interest is her contribution to and focus on getting women online.
Cybergrrl is not only grrl friendly it is girl empowering. Also active in supporting and creating other sites about and for young women.
Are you ready to really work at promoting yourself on the Web? One stop at Expose and Barbara will get you going! All the tips and links to do it yourself and a professional who will get to work for you for very reasonable fees. Not a "promise the world" place. Expose is truly professional web site promotion.
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Gem Lake Design & Amelia Spruill
amelia@gemlake.com
Annapolis, Maryland, USA
