It took me nearly three years of being on the net to really discover the web. My friends would make webpages and give me their urls...and I never visited. Part of that was the machine I was using. It was not possible to run irc and netscape at the same time. Another part of it was that I was intimidated by the very thought of making a web page, though I wanted to. We finally upgraded our computers at work and got on the net, and the task fell to me to make a web page. I guess that they assumed that since I knew how to turn my computer on, I could do this. Uh huh.
Anyway, once I upgraded at home, I could access netscape and do other things too without it taking ten minutes to open and to change pages.One of the first pages I ever looked at was Tinkrbel's Playground. Tink and I had been chatting for a couple of years, and I knew she did some web pages for a couple of the channels she chatted in. What I didn't realize was how much MORE she'd done than just those channel pages. Tinkrbel's Playground won a Five Star Award, so it was a good place for me to be introduced to the possibilities of the web. Check it out and see for yourself!
and and I could go on, but you'll see. She's got lots of good stuff and plenty of good links, and she inspired me to give it a try. In fact, she insisted that I could do it. I wasn't really happy with the page that I had done for work, and Tink gave me a couple of leads to things that would help me spruce up the page and get me started on my home page.
I found those and others to be extremely helpful. If you're looking for good information, instructions, banners, backgrounds, software, buttons, animations, music, inspiration....check out these sites:
Graphics Sources
Hundreds...maybe THOUSANDS of links to gif sites. A great compilation. It's an honor to be listed there.
AnimatedGif Finder Another encyclopedic site. An archive with hundreds of pages of animated gifs for personal use only. There are some gifs on this site that users are asked not to copy. Please respect this request.
Denton's Dimensions: For an out of this world effect. Some of the most fun animated gifs I've found.
Seashell has some of the prettiest backgrounds and borders and she excels at designing pages for her family members and friends. You'll also find some neat 3-D stuff there.I haven't seen anything s he can't do yet, although she would say she can't draw a straight line.
Graphics-Related Software
I downloaded a trial version of Paintshop Pro in March. It is the most user-friendly program of its type I have found and I haven't found much I CAN'T do with it! Try it and see for yourself.
If you're dealing with graphics a lot, as most web page designers are, you're constantly looking for ways to decrease the load time, decrease the size of your files, and protect your original work. Well, guess what? There's a piece of affordable software that does all that and more! Check out Auto/FX's WebVise Totality. It has both gif and jpeg compression engines, a digital watermarking feature, other features I haven't even TRIED yet...AND you can set all this up to process big batches of image files.
It can operate as a stand-alone application, or you can use it as a plug-in in Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro! Click on the lizard...it'll take you to their site where you'll read about all the features, plus read all the reviews of other satisfied customers!
Midis
I'm not normally a big fan of the eternally looped midi on a website. Nevertheless, there is some good music out there available for use on webpages.
The Piper's Corner Contains some outstanding original arrangements of piping tunes. Charles Fowler has provided a neat place here, with midis and tips on piping.
One of my favorite sites for classical music midis is Pierre R. Schwob's Classical Midi Archives. It's one of the most comprehensive classical music sites I've found, and the quality of the midis is superb. Sometimes I go there and page through the index of composers and listen at random. Pay CLOSE attention to the copyright information. Everything there is copyrighted and permissions must be sought from the compiler(s).
Take a walk through Feather's pages. She has something for everyone. It's a friendly and peaceful place.
Pathway of the Heart For inspiration in the day-to-daygrind, visit Mike's site. I especially like "The Invitation...", but thewhole site is worth viewing.
Index of Friends with Pages
Graphics Index Page | My Garden (Index) | The Sea (Index) | Backgrounds | Landscapes | Waterfalls | Miscellaneous Drawings | Illustrated Poem 1 | Illustrated Poem 2 | Links to Friends | html Tips | Awards | Lindy & George's Home Page | George's Woodwork | Rose-of-Sharon | New Work | Lindy's Lakes | Photographs | Fantasy Pages | Background Tiles |
