- Creating Your Personal Web Page: This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of creating a personal web page using NVu. Get NVu here. Another tool, nearly identical to NVu, but packaged with a suite of other tools such as a web-browser, e-mail and newsgroup client, chat client, and HTML editing is called SeaMonkey. Download SeaMonkey here. Finally, an updated version of NVu called KompoZer is available for download here. All three of these tools are based on the same core platform and have the same menu structure and operation. Movies for how to use these tools are available at AtomicLearning.com (see next bullet).
- How-to Movies -- Making a Personal Web Page Using Nvu: These pages, developed by Augsburg faculty member Bill Bierden, includes step-by-step mini-movies that show you how to make a web page using Nvu/SeaMonkey/KompoZer/BlueGriffon. (Remember that all of these programs are really the same basic program with the same basic functions and commands, so while the movies feature Nvu, the principles are the same for all of the apps.)
- Uploading Your Personal Web Page: Click here to read instructions on how to upload (i.e., "publish") your website to your AugNet www folder.
- Setting up Windows to use WebDav to Access Your AugNet NetStorage Space in Windows (Accessing your AugNet NetStorage space via WebDav is much better than accessing it via a web browser. In order to install it, there's an optional update you must download from Microsoft to install WebDav. It's at this site. Also, here's more info on how to download, install and set-up WebDAV + NetStorage in Windows.) Information on other ways to access your AugNet space (on a Mac and Windows) is available at this page.
- How to Access Your AugNet Folder (Here's a link to a page that explains the multiple ways to access your AugNet storage volume, but remember the best way to access it for making web pages is the method described above.)
These Resources Are Not Required Reading, But May Help You Develop Your Site
Sample Sites From Some of Your Fellow Auggies: Many students ask, "What does a good non-professional website look like?" Well, here are a few sample sites constructed by other Auggies:
- Stand-alone web site (like the optional website developed in this course)
- Blog-format site (like the alternate optional website developed in this course)
Other Helpful Links to Help You Build Your Site (especially if you're aiming for a site worth a grade higher than 2.0)
Sample SIte From A Teacher: Many students ask, "What does a good teacher-made website look like?" Well, here's a very good site made by a teacher. It would earn a 4.0 grade in this class.
Add "Widgets" To Your Web Site: Click here to get the code you'll need to add an education-related news feed to your web site. This one's from EdWeek, but there are many others like this available, including maps, calendars, and other items from Google and Yahoo.
Giphy - Add Annimated GIFs to Your Website: GIFs (Graphical Interchange Format) are a great way to add some character and sass to an email, website, or blog post. Giphy allows anyone to easily make their own custom GIFs using either a link to an online video or by uploading their own media.
VisualLightBox: VisualLightBox is a free application that helps you easily generate online photo albums, lightbox gallery with a nice Lightbox-style overlay effect, in a few clicks without writing a single line of code.
Adding Sound to Your Site: Here's a webpage with an easy tip--how to place sounds/music on a web page. You can either set it up to automatically play in the background or permit readers to manually start and stop the sound. This tip comes from The "How To For Dummies" website.
Dipity: With Dipity, users can create their own timeline, and populate it with photos, video clips, text, and other items. The mission of Dipity is "to organize the web's content by
date and time", and it is well suited for use by journalists, government organizations, teachers, and museums, among others. Visitors will need to create an account to get started, but the basic version remains free. Dipity is compatible with all operating systems.
RSzer: This resource, developed by a husband and wife computer science team from Israel, allows users to "intelligently" re-size photos. What that means is that you can stretch and shrink photos without distorting the main subjects (usually people). It's Flash-based, so it works on any platform.
The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials: Sometimes, you may find it difficult to look for some of the highest quality Photoshop tutorials using search engines. As most of time, almost all tutorials would label themselves to be good, high quality or even the best photoshop tutorial you can find. When searching through all these tutorials, your time is wasted. In order to save your time, Photoshop Lady has been spending almost a whole year to search for the best Photoshop tutorials for you. Eventually, she suggests The 100 Most Popular Photoshop Tutorials. These are selected from their published tutorials.
Finding Free and Cheap Photo Editors for Windows 7: Microsoft did not entirely abandon its free photo-editing software in Windows 7, but you now do have to take the extra step of downloading it.
Jalbum is free picture album software compatible with either Mac or Windows. With Jalbum it's easy to create your own photo album site.
JetPhoto is a full-featured freeware application to store, organize, view and share digital photos, as well as publish photo albums onto Web. JetPhoto works with both Mac and Windows PCs. Once a photo album is prepared, only one click is needed to synchronize local album with an online photo album based on JetPhoto Server. JetPhoto Server also enables users to quickly build and customize a searchable full-featured photo website. Finally, JetPhoto also integrates GPS technology to locate and track photos on a geographical map.
The Secret Art of Web Design This website has a large collection of resources to get you started at whatever level of experience you possess. Topics include how to get started, how to add Javascripts and Java Applets, using tables, preparing photos with Photoshop, and much more. (Thanks to Auggie Luom Seidenkranz for the suggestion.)
Sexy Web Design: Download this PDF file in order to learn many of the basic principles of good web design.
Building A School Web Site: Produced by The Jade Witers Group, this site offers a basic and easy-to-follow guide for teachers and students who want to construct a Website for their school or personal use. Users can choose to read the guide in order or by section, and it covers topics such as a basic introduction to HTML, using a Web editor, standards, bandwidth, search engine placement, and animation. Although the screenshot illustrations are from a Mac, the lessons apply to any platform.
While certainly not as deep or detailed as other guides, the friendly and informal tone of this site will appeal to beginners and young users.
How To Make A Website An easy, step-by-step guide from a web developer.
Web Monkey: Billing itself as "the web developer's resource," www.webmonkey.com has searchable libraries of "how-to" tutorials.
Java Applets: You can learn how to put mini-programs (called "applets") on your web pages at Javaworld.com and Java.com.
Javascript.com: Templates and tutorials for placing javascripts (small pieces of computer code that do things like count visitors, place calendars and calculators on your page, etc.) may be found at Javascript.com. (Note: Java and Javascript are two totally different technologies. Knowing one tells you nearly nothing about the other.)
101 Javascript Tricks: This PDF document is for advanced users. It contains a number of guides and tricks to improve your Javascripts and DHTML.
Omeka Developed by The Center for History and New Media and the Minnesota Historical Society, Omeka is a web platform for publishing exhibitions and collections online. The design of the program is intended to be best utilized by educators, cultural institutions, and those who are just plain enthusiastic about a particular subject. Visitors can download the program and get started after looking over the "How To" area. For those who are curious, "omeka" is a Swahili word meaning "to display or lay out goods or wares". This particular application is compatible with all operating systems.
Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites: This style manual reflects the authors' attempts to apply some of the lessons they've learned in twelve years of multimedia software design, graphic interface design, and book design to the new medium of Web pages and site design.
Reallybig.com: Styling itself "the largest directory of Web building resources on the Internet," this gateway offers links to over 3,000 resources for Web page developers of all skill levels. Some of the resource categories featured at the site include HTML Editors, HTML Tutorials, Log Analyzers, Hit Counters, Graphics Tools, CGI Scripts, Truetype Fonts, Icons, Site Promotion, and many others. Subsections and individual resources all include annotations of varying length. Users can also subscribe to a monthly newsletter at the site.
Ten Good Deeds in Web Design: An article in Jakob Nielsen's well-respected electronic publication Alertbox suggests ten simple but effective design elements to increase the usability of almost any site. The page also offers links to Nielsen's lists of top-ten mistakes in Web design and Web project management. Anyone maintaining or contemplating the design of a Website should read these short lists.
How the 'Net Works, from Access Magazine
From MacWorld Magazine: Create a Barrier-Free Web Site This article from MacWorld magazine reviews the important elements for making your web site accessible for those with vision and hearing impairments. Their suggestions apply to either platform--PC or Mac. __
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