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Author Topic: Questions about how to make my first homepage -- don't laugh
Tatiana
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To help with my job search, I want to make a webpage. I've never done this before, so it's high time I learned how. [Smile]

I have a few questions:

1) My ISP will host one for me for free up to 5 MB? Is 5 meg enough? I don't plan to post music or video clips but text and some pictures yes.

2) Should I use my ISP or is there a better alternative?

3) I've got my content ready in jpg images and Word documents. What do I do now? What's the best way to learn how?

4) I have Photoshop v.6 but don't know it well. I'd like to use it to generate some cool looking images. Any tips?

5) Another Photoshop question: What's the best way to put a picture of a person's head onto a different background? My first attempt looks terrible.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[ December 08, 2004, 01:16 PM: Message edited by: Tatiana ]

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Corwin
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I'm not really into the web page business, but I think I can offer some advice.

1. 5MB is kind of small. If you want to have pictures of a reasonable size, and and some other things to your website you might find that 5MB are filled in no time. There are some free webpage providers, you could look into that. My brother got a page on free.fr, but if you wouldn't like it to 'look French', I'm sure you can find others. fugu might know of a few. Free.fr has no pop-ups at all, but I don't know how easy the building interface is...

4. My brother used a kind of "color replacing" tool - don't know its name - which can turn one color into another, so you can get interesting effects like this: "out of time" (click on the image to go back to the gallery, and on the gallery's title to go to the homepage). Notice that the woman's face has differently colored stripes on it.

5. There's a tool that enables you to cut a certain part of a picture. You can work on its parameters so that it snaps closer to the head you're trying to cut (that's sound awful, doesn't it? [Big Grin] ) even if the contour you draw isn't perfect. I don't have Photoshop here, but if nobody writes about this I'll ask my brother or a friend of mine what's that tools name and what parameters you have to modify.

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CaySedai
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I can help you with some of that - let me look some things up.

I use Arachnophilia, a free program, to create and edit my Web pages. I actually use the old, Windows version, because I'm used to it, but need to start using the newer version.

It's not that difficult to create pages in Notepad, which is the most basic way, but you can do good pages with it.

And, make sure that if you use someone else's graphics, do it with permission (which will be stated on their page) and give them credit (which is generally in their Terms of Service).

Going to look up links now.

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Zeugma
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Your best bet, unless you want to seriously invest some time in learning graphic design and photoshop, might be to find a template you can use. When I was using Apple's .Mac service, there was a good resume template that you could just plug content into. It costs money now, though. There might be other such services out there.

5MB should be fine, as long as you compress the pictures and don't put a ton on.

It's a big leap, though, between putting a page on the web and creating something that looks professional (which you kind of want if you're using it for a job search). I have little to no natural design talent, and after... *thinks*... seven years of poking around with web stuff, I'm only just now starting to be happy with the stuff I'm making.

[ December 08, 2004, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Zeugma ]

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BannaOj
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5MB is small for an extremely sophisticated web area with lots of sub pages and pictures. For a simple website I'd start with the five mb you have. Shrink your pictures to about 200K before putting them on the site and you'll be fine. If you find you rapidly outgrow it then look for other providers. But I'd say use what you have for free to learn with first.

AJ

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CaySedai
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Vikimouse has an HTML school with basic instructions in easy to learn lessons.

You can host your photos on a free site and link to them on your site if you want to use your ISP. My ISP offers 25 Meg per email address, and I can have up to 7 additional mailboxes. A lot of Jatraqueros post pictures on Foobonic. I'm not sure if you can post them there and link to them on your page.

I would copy the information from Word and format it in HTML with an HTML editor, like Arachnophilia, or even Notepad. (From a class I took) Word and other word processing programs "add stuff" when creating a Web page. It's hard to explain, I just have an idea in my head. Anyway, the gist of it is that the file will be smaller if formatted correctly.

Edited to add: HTML gives you the option to specify the size of the photo (in pixels, like 200 w and 300 h - that's not the right code, just an idea). Photoshop gives you the option to save copy as - then optimize for web. That's where you specify the file size. You can look at up to 4 images and pick one that has the quality you want and the file size you need.

[ December 08, 2004, 01:48 PM: Message edited by: CaySedai ]

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TomDavidson
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For what you want -- a website that serves as a resume -- 5MB is ample. If you want to put much more on there, particularly photo albums or the like, you're going to want to significantly increase that space. It's not inconceivable that you could make a perfectly attractive and functional resume site with two or three pages at around 145 kilobytes total.

My site, with its sizable and fairly hi-res (compared to most personal sites) photo album, comes in at around 300MB.

I, too, would recommend looking for a professional template. Since this is for a job search, you don't want to experiment too much; you're better off getting a second personal site for play if you want to learn web design.

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advice for robots
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Stay away from animated gifs, scrolling marquees, blinking text, etc. Don’t go overboard on your graphics. If you’re not good with Photoshop yet, chances are you won’t want to put your first creations on your website. Don’t go overboard with filters, drop shadows, fonts, etc. Keep it nice and simple. [Smile]
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fugu13
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I should put up and charge for some standards compliant, well written templates.
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Zalmoxis
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And to follow up on what Tom said -- you definitely don't want to use a free Web hosting service for a resume. It makes you look unprofessional.
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TMedina
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Word will usually allow you to convert a .doc into a .htm file with minimum fuss.

5 MB should be fine for what you describe.

I recommend HtmlGoodies.com as a good reference site.

Notepad is how I preferred to create my pages in school - you can also create a .txt file with all the common bits of large code you use so you can just copy/paste the information in.

-Trevor

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WheatPuppet
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I reccomend basic HTML and CSS. Basic HTML and CSS (cascading stylesheets) is pretty easy, and it allows you to change your design without rewriting your content. CSS is the godsend of web developers, now if it were only implemented better.
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