Webmaster resources

 www.baldock.ca/webmaster
2005/09/17


Yes this is a lengthy web page to read, but it will save you reinventing
the wheel on your own and it is a resource for useful tools and methods.

The essential elements to consider include:

  • a registered domain name if you want a URL like yourname.com
  • a host provider to store and serve your web directories and files
  • software to create, edit and validate web site pages
  • graphic/photo editors to create and edit images for the web pages.

  • an FTP application to transfer your files to/from the web space

Essential tools (for the beginner on a budget)

  • You have Internet Explorer, but you also need FireFox to test your web pages in the other major browser and it can create and edit pages. It's free and you can download the CuneAform extension, a competent wysiwyg web page editor for the novice webmaster on a budget. Netscape and Mozilla browsers are dead, and should be uninstalled before before installing FireFox. Another free highly recommended standalone wysiwyg web page editor is Nvu. It is an evolution of Mozilla Composer.
  • The best FTP application is SmartFTP. It is free for personal use and it is worth the $30US for business use. It is both powerful and intuitive for any webmaster to easily manage folders and files on the hosted web site. Transfers are more robust if you configure Tools>Settings>Connection for Max Retires= -1, Retry delay=20 and server timeout=90. Ensure Keep Alive is enabled.
  • Avoid posting your email address directly on a web page or the spam web crawlers will harvest it. Enkoder Form is a web based work around that creates javascript code to hide email addresses in an email link from the bots.
  • Even with the best wysiwyg editors, you'll appreciate a powerful text editor like NoteTab Pro It's $20US. Even their free version is useful to convert rich text documents or bad html files into basic html code you can then format in a page editor. You can open and globally edit many files at once, and it can create or tidy-up html code.  You'll probably disable Window's inadequate text editor Notepad. Another free text based editor is 1st Page 2000 that is highly recommended for its many code helpers, references and preview pane. 1st Page 2K is a powerful editor for novices and webmaster gurus. A similar alternative is WebCoder. NoteTab and 1st page 2000 together cover most bases very well. Compare these text editors with the recommendation below for TopStyle ($80US).

Recommended tools (i.e. grow into as the need arises)

  • To explore the low cost or free options for PDF creation, see my compilation of various articles and reviews. Adobe Acrobat 6 is my only personal purchase recommendation, but it's very expensive, so try the free options first. Likely one of them will meet your requirements just fine. An interesting and versatile free alternative for personal use is the Paperless Printer.
  • You're always specifying colours on the web. Pixie, Pixeur, Spectroscope, and Meazure 2.0 are free and useful installs. The following links are useful online colour aids:
  • Virtual screen rulers help you size page elements. Screen Calipers and JR Screen Ruler are free and useful.
  • Meazure 2.0 is a free utility that measures dimensions and angles, does a variety of screen captures, enlarges, colour picks and puts grids on your screen. Several unique capabilities to explore.
  • Once you get more than a few pages, you need Xenu's Link Sleuth, to report broken links. The interface is a bit geeky, but it does a necessary task for free. If you buy a web page editor, this functionality is likely included.
  • To learn how particular web pages work, sse your browser's view/save source option or edit it directly in any wysiwyg editor, including Mozilla/Netscape. If you need more of what is behind a web page/site, WinHTTrack captures web site files for off line access/re-use. The interface is uber geek, but the results are best of breed, and its free. Be careful not to harvest the entire internet!
  • Web page editors (beyond Composer)
    • Net Objects Fusion 7.5 is the best value in an advanced editor. Not the easiest for a novice webmasters tho'. About $165US. NOF probably offers discounts near end of trial.
    • The sweet spot in my view is Microsoft Frontpage 2003. It holds the middle ground in cost and functionality.  Well suited for novice to advanced user. Costco's $259 price is hard to beat. FrontPage recommendation does not extend to any earlier versions.
    • Advanced editor choices require higher learning commitment and cost $400US standalone, and are also available in webmaster oriented software suites. Ranked by my opinion:
    • All  of the above products offer free trial downloads. You can check out some web development software reviews here.
    • Investigate your upgrade eligibility before purchasing any product at full price. Students receive amazing educational discounts on high end choices. Check at college and university computer stores for the terms of use, price, availability and future upgradeability.
    • Even with the best editors, some web site behaviours will require other graphic or coding tools. Javascripts use Dynamic HTML to create useful web page behaviours. Most people aren't geek enough to code robust (i.e. compatible with older and yet to be released browser versions)  Javascripts. You typically seek out free/purchase utilities to script specific behaviours. If various dropdown and fly-out menus, is what you need, then purchase AllWebMenus. It will take a couple of evenings to read the manual and master the use of it. In the end, it does make menu production both creative and productive to develop and support.
    • The wysiwyg editors are productive and alluring, but don't overlook the need to stock your tool box with html aware text editors suggested above and/or in the next item.
    • Cascading style sheets (CSS) are a step up from HTML in web site programming. The above editors are weak in site wide support of CSS implementation. TopStyle Pro ($80US) is a renown add-on for easily implementing CSS. It includes several useful HTML & XHTML edit and validation utilities. It covers NoteTab and 1st Page 2000 functionality and much, much more.
  • Graphics & Photo applications
    • If you haven't got a great photo organizer, consider first PhotoShop Elements 3 that integrates organization and image editing very well. Price varies between $90 and $140CDN. For a useful free photo organizer, try Picasa 2.
    • If photo organization isn't a big issue, Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 is an excellent and affordable alternative to the very pricey Adobe PhotoShop CS. Most needs are met well with either Photoshop Elements 3 or Paint Shop Pro 9. I seldom need to use PhotoShop CS, but one must acknowledge that Photoshop due it's deep capabilities is a verb for image editing. If you want to explore free options, start with this TechTV article. I haven't tried them, but they're recommended by reliable sources. Ultimate Paint ($35+US) has free version that is worth a look. The free GIMP has a new variant called GIMPshop that uses a Photoshop-like user interface. A new entrant into the free editors is Paint.net.
    • JAlbum is very useful and best of breed for generating photo albums for use anywhere. Gallery is a sophisticated application for generating photo albums on your hosted site. If you are on Windows XP, try Windows Photo Story 3 to create fancy video slideshows with audio. All are free.
    • A program to stitch photos/images together is useful, e.g. to reassemble overlapping scanned images  of oversized objects/documents. A good place to research and select such an application is PanoGuide. If you have a photo editing program, it may include a panorama tool. I require the ability to do mosaics (common uses: legal length docs, pamphlets, and maps), not just panoramas. I also needed strong manual controls, so I chose to buy Panavue and like it very much. There are some interesting free choices as well at PanoGuide and this recent entrant, Autostitch is also free.
    • Not many applications can enlarge a graphic file without the result looking pixelated. Try IrfanView first for all your image resizing/resampling/rotation needs. It does an excellent job without quality losses for free! There is an excellent Windows Explorer shell extension for IrfanView at www.Baxbex.com that is very useful. Whenever my other graphics programs fail to enlarge an image well, Imagener Pro succeeds. Stepping up again is Imaginer Pro's amazing Unlimited version. It uses a unique bitmap to vector technology that enlarges images to any size. Probably need lots of RAM tho'.
    • If you want to view, browse and convert images IrfanView serves well, but XnView handles every imaginable image file you'll ever encounter.
    • When you must rescue an out-of-focus or blurred photo image, FocusMagic is very useful. Neat Image reduces digital noise in images very nicely and comes in both free/paid versions. Metrix is a simple plugin for Photoshop Elements, PaintShop Pro, Corel Draw or Paint, etc. that colour matches two images easily. JpegCrop is very useful to crop jpeg images without any quality losses due to the typical recompression that other programs introduce.
    • Images saved as GIFs can have one colour set as transparent. Lots of the above programs can do this, but if you already have Microsoft Photo Editor (part of Microsoft Office), it does this particular task quite simply. I do my transparencies in PhotoShop Elements 2.0 using magic wand to select, then applying one of the background erasers. Wands and erasures have many fine tune adjustments to get the best result. Once you have a transparent gif, you can save it as a vector file (.bmp/.wmf/.eps) as well. For example, a transparent gif of your scanned signature, is useable in all office applications when saved as a .wmf.
    • I don't draw much, but I use Corel Draw. It comes with CorelTRace that converts graphic files to vector files which scale to any size perfectly.
    • To recover missing image files from your PC or removable flash media, try PC Inspector's File Recovery and Smart Recovery programs. A bit slow, but they rescue your files for free. To rescue files on any optical CD media try IsoBuster.
    • A tablet pen input device (e.g. Wacom) is wonderfully useful for graphic work. A useful input aid for either a mouse or tablet is WinPointer 3. It intuitively annotates anything you can see on your computer. Great for use during a presentation or for creating markup slide overlays.
  • In the not essential but regularly useful category, try SnagIt for capturing, editing, annotating, and converting images of anything on your PC.  Some really useful captures you wouldn't have imagined until you've tried SnagIt. It's easy to use and I'm always discovering new uses for it. Don't overlook the very useful capture capabilities included in the free Meazure 2.0 described above.

Hosting tips

  • When it comes to hosting there are many choices, and there always seems to be trade offs. Here I'll just share my experience with hosts in a small business context (no on-site ecommerce tho'). I do welcome other suggestions/experiences on other value choices.
    I praise Tomahawk in Carleton Place for web hosting. If or when you need it, they really do provide the quality/custom service you pay for. Look.ca provides a nice balance of accessible quality technical support with excellent do it yourself control panels. Tomahawk and Look are both the actual hosts, so they manage all aspects related to your satisfaction.
    I'm currently with a couple of hosts (marked with *) in the following list of lowest cost solutions that you might also check out. Windows hosts: 1planhost*, Webstrike Solutions. Unix hosts: iPowerWeb, BlueHost*(I praise BlueHost's outstanding support), InfinityHost, IXwebhosting, OSISHosting, Wowrack, livin4.com, HostExcellence, VisaWeb. The listed hosts represent a variety of plans to choose among. Any would be suitable for sites with modest speed/traffic requirements.
  • If you can get by with using the personal web space provided by your ISP, Sibername among others charges about $10/year for a domain name server redirect to your specified directory and file location (for example: http://members.rogers.com/youremail'swebdirectoryname/index.htm, or http://www3.sympatico.ca/youremail'swebdirectoryname/index.htm). It appears that Sympatico and Rogers are phasing out free web spaces in favor of ad supported or paid services. Consider the other low cost options suggested in the previous tip.
    • Sympatico only provides a 5 meg webspace for the primary email account with monthly traffic limited to 25 meg. Sympatico.ca webspaces can only be updated from a phone line that is connected to the internet via ASDL and Bell Sympatico as the ISP. Once you leave your home, what are your chances of finding ready access to Sympatico connected phonelines? Forget posting your files/photos while traveling or collaboratively developing your site. Sympatico is teaming up with MSN, so the free web space may disappear, but the other limitations will probably be remedied by whatever paid hosting solution is offered.
    • Rogers provides 10-15 megs of webspace for the primary email and 10 meg/secondary emails (which is not pooled together) and the allowed monthly page traffic is 300 meg. Rogers is replacing the free webspace with ad supported hosting. One can pay $5/mo. or more for hosting without the inserted ads (but poor value tho', file storage just 25 meg).
    • If you need additional file space, you can distribute the site's files (starting with the largest images) among your other email webspaces. Such careful use of relative URLs
       (e.g. ../yourotheremail'swebdirectoryname/folder/filename) would only be tolerable for a personal web presence with very low traffic (i.e. few photos/graphics) or a limited "business card" site.
  • Dot com names are more economical than dot ca names to register and usually include services that cost extra with dot ca domains. A dot ca domain costs a bit more to own than a dot com domain name.
    • 1and1, GoDaddy, NameSecure, and RegisterFly are all good values as .com domain registrars, that include many features, such as forwarding of email and masked URL redirection. A low cost email only hosting, is seldom offered as part of the domain registration. Some of these registrars do offer it as an add on. For example 1and1 offers it as a $12US/yr add on that includes 5 emails at 1 Gig each.
    • For .ca domain registration, the typical annual cost is about $20. I use Sibername. They charge $13-$15/year for a reasonable compliment of features.
  • Many ISP email accounts have a 10 meg space limit. If more space is needed, shop for hosting that doesn't limit email storage by account or use an email only hosting solution such as: DomainMail. The trend to super sizing email space is gaining momentum as Rogers.Yahoo, GMail(free), 1and1 and others offer 1-2Gig accounts!

Miscellaneous tips

  • When designing your site's page look/style, consider first using web safe fonts. Google "web safe font" and learn about using them by perusing several articles. I was interested in controlling display of sans-serif type faces, so I decided on using <font face= "Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet MS, Sans-serif"> to cover any PC/Mac/Unix browser. As long as the list ends with Sans-serif, you can re-order the chosen sans-serif fonts based on your preferences. Cascading styles is the best way to implement control over fonts.
  • To establish precise object positioning, create a 1 pixel x 1 pixel transparent .gif file and just specify its displayed pixel width and/or height when adding it as a picture to your page. Right click here to save/download a ready made 1x1.gif.
  • If your development requires sharing large files, IZarc is a free utility for compressing and uncompressing files in many formats. IZarc is much more versatile than the popular WinZip.
  • If you want to send massive files (up to a gigabyte) you can do it through these services: YouSendit, Sendthisfile, or Dropload. No need to use either email attachments or FTP. You upload the file to their server, and they send an email to your recipients with the link for downloading during a limited number of days.

Additional resources

Topics to explore

  • I do not as yet have sufficient experience or knowledge to offer useful recommendations on effective and economical search engine registering and ranking strategies. I welcome any suggestions on this topic.
  • Anyone have experience using webcams productively?
  • Strategies on ecommerce solutions is another topic to explore.

  • I'm considering web logs (a.k.a. blogs) or WiKis as a means to collaborate on software updates.

Contact Gord for further information or help. 820-5585 or .