Date: Fri 30-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

iinfo-personal-web-sites

Full Text:

INTERNET INFO FOR REAL PEOPLE: Personal Websites

By Bob Brand

Sometimes I just like to surf the Web with no particular place in mind.

Patches of cyberspace that hold particular fascination are personal websites.

We call them home pages. These amateur (not for profit) areas are usually

buried within Internet Service Provider (ISP) sites. In an effort to offer

added value to its subscribers, smaller ISPs often allocate disk space to its

users for personal home pages. In many cases, the home page cost is included

in the monthly access fee.

A good example of this the activity is found at http://www.i84.net, a

Danbury-based ISP. (Note: recently i84 was purchased by NetPlex in Hartford:

http://www.ntplx.net. The Netplex personal website area is essentially under

construction.) For a monthly fee of $15 (Netplex reduced the price since

acquiring i84), subscribers receive full, unlimited Internet access, including

e-mail and five megabytes of disk space for a personal website. The old i84

site (note: on the Netplex site you must click to go to the old i84 Home Page)

offers detailed, yet easy to follow, instructions along with recommended

software needed to accomplish the task. The home pages are listed in the i84

Users Corner along with hotlinks to the individual websites.

Quality Varies

Like so much on the Internet, the quality of personal websites varies from

marginal to outstanding. Nevertheless, even poorly constructed websites can

hold a certain charm. On the high end, some amateur sites are better

constructed than those available from webmasters calling themselves

professionals. When viewing sites in the i84 Users Corner, the wide quality

swing quickly surfaces.

In many cases, the mistakes made on a poor site can be easily corrected so

that its appeal improves dramatically. For me, appealing websites: 1) load

quickly, 2) present clear, easy to read information, 3) allow me to contact

the owner, 4) are kept up-to-date, and 5) are never dull.

Common Mistakes

The most common mistake made by amateur and professionals is the over-use of

large graphics files. When a page loads slowly, my first reaction is to hit

the red stop icon and move to another location. Almost every websurfer I know

feels this way. If developers of personal websites can avoid the temptation of

opening the site with a full screen picture of themselves, their family or a

favorite rock group, the Web would be a better place immediately.

For reasons hard to explain, some amateurs (and professionals) create websites

with dark colors or busy background patterns. When used with black lettered

text, these sites become practically unreadable. Blue hotlinks on a black

background should be avoided. Color choices, such as yellow, purple and some

shades of green, should be chosen carefully as poor combinations can ruin an

otherwise good personal website. Sad. When using "exotic" colors, webcreators

may lose sight of the fact that what looks great on a monitor with 16 million

colors can have unexpected results when viewed on lower powered equipment.

Most graphic images on the Internet are protected with copyrights. Frequently,

personal websites contain pictures of Disney characters, scanned images from

magazines, or other photos covered by copyright. Even though these images are

displayed on not-for-profit websites, permission from the owner is required.

Over time, there may be enforcement of copyright laws and the site owner could

face still fines for unauthorized use.

Maybe it is just me, but I get annoyed when suddenly I hear music coming from

a website. Invariably, the sound has that computer-generated texture and tone.

In most cases, there is no way to turn it off. My advice: save the bandwidth;

kill the tunes.

The Good Stuff

Personal websites often take one of two routes. In the first case, the

developer loses interest in the project and the site falls prey to benign

neglect. Eventually, the site disappears. On the other hand, in some rare

cases, the developer becomes completely consumed in the undertaking. What

starts out as a small hobby becomes an all-consuming addiction. Many waking

hours become invested in finding tidbits of information needed to update the

site and answer e-mail from like-minded enthusiasts. These sites add richness

and texture to the Web. Sometimes I just like to surf in the hopes of

stumbling across one of these gems.

Attn: SNET Subscribers

Recently SNET modified its website to include a method for subscribers to

generate a home page both quickly and easily. SNET subscribers should give

this a whirl.

URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) of interest:

http://www.i84.net/html/users.htm

http://www.cuteftp.com/

http://www.i84.net/html/users.htm

http://www.ntplx.net/

http:/www.snet.net/

(This is the 88th of a series of elementary articles designed for surfing the

Internet. Next, "Yahoo! Scam" is the subject on tap. Stay tuned. Until next

week, happy travels through cyberspace.

Previous issues of Internet Info for Real People can be found at

http://www.thebee.com. Please e-mail comments and suggestions to

rbrand@JUNO.com or editor@thebee.com.)