Technical Information
Software Needs for Publishing on Our Web Server
- Microsoft FrontPage, preferably FrontPage 2002.
- Image editing program that allows you to save compressed images GIF or JPG format.
- Windows 2000 subweb account. Contact Sicco Rood.
Image Compression
Most images start out very large (a 30K image could easily take 15 seconds to load on a 28.8 modem).
Use an image editing program like Photoshop to crop out unnecessary information. Use JPG or GIF compression.
- JPG: for photographs and gradations
- GIF: for drawings, graphs, etc.
You should be able to compress a large image to fewer than than 20K and still have a good-looking image (unless it is very large, like a map).
For very large images, create a link to a larger version.
Folder Structure
A clean folder structure looks like this:
- Content folder to house "include" pages
- Documents folder for PDF and Word documents
- Images folder for images
The designed pages (.ASP) don't need to go in a sub-folder. Please note that your home page will usually (and preferably) be named "index."
File Naming Conventions
Understandable, without spaces or punctuation
- Make sure file names are understandable, but not too long.
- Do NOT include punctuation or spaces in a file name—this confuses the server and web browsers. Substitute spaces for an underscore _.
No special characters
- Special characters, such as $ % # ?, confuse the server extensions and will keep you from modifying the file later.
No back or forward slashes
- Use dashes or underscores (_) to separate words if needed.
No more than 31 characters
- In a file name, including the extension (.html, .asp, .doc).
Checks Before Going Live
- Preview your page on two different Internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
- Consider previewing on a dialup connection, so you can see how fast your page loads.
- Check your site from a Mac as well, if possible.
Academic Coordinators: Please proofread your content. Better yet, have someone else read your page. As soon as you save, the webpage becomes live!
How to Stand Out in the Search Engines
- Describe the program in the pages with all the relevant keywords in the text—without overdoing or repeating the key words too often.
- Search engines reward links coming to your pages from other sites: see if you can get other sites to link to your site in exchange for linking to their sites.
- Find out who your main competition is and look at their site to see how you can improve yours.
Free Website Hosting Services
- Yahoo GeoCities Free email account and web pages
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