The Web Page-General Info

What is a Web Site?

A web site is a place, with an "address," on the World Wide Web showing information. The first document you see of a site is called it's homepage. Good sites give fast-loading, easy-to-understand content. You'll find text & graphics in the site that are "hot links." Clicking your mouse on them will jump you to a new spot on that site or to an entirely different web site. Variety & content of web sites available to "visit" on the Internet is enormous. You can click on the images down the left side of this page to view some sample web elements for ideas. The creation of your personal or business web site is limited only by your imagination!

Web Site Examples: Good Quality vs. Poor

It's not as easy to find excellent sites on the Internet as it to find poor ones...

Poor examples: Often web pages contain interferring backgrounds, one of which you'll see at http://hotyellow98.com/trcasey/. Visit http://www.zaldesign.com to see an advertisement for web design that uses irritating animation & colors, a poor quality untouched-up photo, & poorly planned layout. My last example of what NOT to do is http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com, which purposely shows overdone animation, non-descriptive links, text that's too small, other no-no's, & links to more poor quality pages.

Quality examples: http://www.virtualelpaso.com/weddings/elegant-penguin/ is an excellent web site. It has a clean, crisp, bright appearance, good organization, & the photos' faded edges help portray the effect of elegance. Another site I like is http://www.fuzzyfaces.com which loads quickly & has pleasant clean design.

Advantages of Web Advertising

Nonstop exposure! 24/7 365 per year	Reaches a larger market	Convenience to potential customers
Professional image	Profitable returns	Inexpensive
Competitive advantage	Easy feedback communication	Means to provide fast service & support
Easily changed & updated	Can be colorful & creative!	Unlimited display options

Internet Terms to Know

Applet - program designed to be executed from within another program
Bitmap - image composed of a pattern of dots
Browser - software program used to locate & display web pages
CGI - (Common Gateway Interface) protocol for interactive data transfer
EPS - (Encapsulated Postscript) high quality graphic format for postscript language
Font - style, design & attributes for a set of text characters
Form - interactive area on site allowing text & entry submission electronically
Format - file storage medium, refers to program type
Frames - multiple windows on a single web page
FTP- (File Transfer Protocol) method of moving files to & from sites
GIF - (Graphic Interchange Format) graphic format best for solid block colors
Homepage - first web document viewed upon entrance to a site
Host - a company providing space to store & post a web site
Hot links - link between two applications
HTML - (Hypertext Markup Language) format supporting text, graphics, & links
Hyperlink - clickable text on a page that transfers to another link
Imagemap - single graphic image containing multiple links
Internet - a global network allowing data exchange between computers
ISP - (Internet Service Provider) a company providing Internet service
Java - high level object-oriented programming language
JPEG - (Joint Photographic Experts Group) compressed graphic & photo format
PERL - (Practical Extraction Report Language) hi-process interpretive language
Protocol - agreed upon format to transmit data between devices
Raster - bitmapped image (made of dot pattern)
Resolution - degree of sharpness & clarity of an image
Scan - product of or use of a devise transforming an image into a computer format
Storyboard - a visual layout plan describing the branches of a web site
Table - format of rows & columns for organized display of text, pictures, & links
Upload - to transmit data from computer to online server, mainframe, or network
URL - (Uniform Resource Locator) global address of a web document
Vector- object oriented graphic image
Web- safe colors -limit of 216 "web-happy" colors that work well on the web
WWW - (World Wide Web) computer network supporting universal documents

Brief Internet History

The computer network concept began early in the 1960's when the Department of Defense designed ARPANET for exchange of US military command & control research. By '69, several hosts were created & computers at Standford, UCLA, UCSB, & the University of Utah connected to ARPANET. This fast electronic means of communication, now called e-mail, became popular by the early 70's. In '74, ARPANET changed to TeleNet, a public commercial version. Newsgroups were introduced in '79. A common network language was developed in the mid '80's allowing corporations & clients to use the Internet for business. By '90, public Internet communications were common, & issues of privacy & security were raised. A programming team formed to address the first major malicious virus, the "Internet Worm." In '91, Hypertext language was developed allowing words, graphics, & photos to be posted on the Internet from all over the world! Mosiac was the first graphic-based browser created in '93. In '95, Java, a hi-capacity programming language, was created, & the National Science Foundation gave up their monopoly over the Internet, leaving it in commercial control. In only 30 years, the Internet grew to to include 10 million hosts & more than 40 million users. Today the Internet serves as a shopping mall, research library, post office, social club, & a place of business.

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