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03 SEP 1997

Thanks for the help!

I want to thank the following folks for their help

(Some don't even know they helped me!)

Guestbook:
I have set up a "guestbook." This will give me an opportunity to see who had a chance to visit this site. Also, any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
The guestbook doesn't show any information that YOU don't want to show. For example, your email address won't show unless you type the address.
So, go ahead sign my guestbook.

- Honolulu. PAGE UPDATE.
I've added the complete site in a text only format.
I've adjusted the background behind the buttons to gray because some browsers couldn't handle the "tables" aspect to well. Their text was getting "lost" on a black background - thanks for the input!
If you have any specific questions that my pages can't seem to help you with just send me an email and I will get the info to you.
Timothy

Here are my current banners:

GEOREWARDS

LINKEXCHANGE

This was made by Karen

Color Chart for HTML links and stuff.

Thanks to Randy at AccessHawaii for the inspiration and encouragment.
Karen's online HTML guide at Create It~101
Also, there is a resource for basic HTML code at "The Bare Bones Guide to HTML"

I do want to thank the folks at geocities.
They are a nifty resource for us "normal" folks to get a free webpage!

I want to thank you for stopping by.
This page hasn't been "announced" yet so you are one of my beta testers! If you come across any problems - or if you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Other Resources

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HTML Help
This is a start of my web page help guide.

I will use extracts of my email to build a help guide for webmasters. (Still editing)

Getting Started on the web.

Geocities, I think, is the BEST place to learn how to make web pages:

1) Free.
2) They have simple, basic editor.
3) Easy to update - on line.
4) Plenty of nice folks to help.

**WHAT IS HTML**

HTML is the "coding" of computer pages. It stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. When a we want to read a Geocities page the Geocities servers sends the HTML script to our computer. The "script" (HTML) is in plain text. The script has various command codes using the Greater Than > (GT) and the Less Than < (LT) brackets.

You start a command (such as "centering" like this: <CENTER> and end a command like this </CENTER> Notice the slash. The slash ends or closes the command - or what we call a "tag". Everything between the two tags would have been centered.
Normally, when you start a command you have end it somewhere on your page. There are many recognized commands, I'll go over them later.

What about pictures and images?
Like I said the server sends the script in plain text - no pics. But, the script refers to pictures (or sound and videos) that are stored as separate files on your server or another server - like a Calvin or Beavis picture.

You can get picture from other places by: (I'm assuming you're using a PC)
- Click on the image with the right mouse button. You get several options.
- Select "save."
Boom, the image is saved on your PC. Then you can edit it and upload to your site and use in your page. (below I talk about referencing images).

I'm going to pick some areas of an actual client page to teach some concepts.

For a Beavis picture they use this text:
<IMG ALIGN="RIGHT" SRC="http://www.gifworld.com/gifs/ Cartoons/Beavis.gif">

This basically has 4 parts:
1) <IMG Your telling your browser to plan for a picture.
2) ALIGN="RIGHT" Your saying align the image to the right also: "center" and "left" are valid.
3)SRC= Your telling the browser where the picture is.
4)"http://...etc..."> You are giving the actual file location of the picture. If the picture was stored in your file in geocities you'd just need "Beavis.gif"> Also, the "> ends the commands for that particular image.

Background, Text and Link Colors
The following is usually at the top part of the HTML to format colors of a page.
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#FF0000">
This tells everyone what colors they'll see as background, links and text. This is also where you assign the "background image" which I discuss later.
** HELP TROUBLESHOOT CODE FOR THE BEAVIS PICTURE**
This is from actual HTML I was troubleshooting for a client with a Geocities account.

Their code:
<IMG ALIGN="RIGHT" SRC="http://www.gifworld.com/gifs/ Cartoons/Beavis.gif">
Looks like they found out how to add an image to their Geocities page. What's wrong with that?
The only problem is they use in an image on their Geocities page that is actually located somewhere else. Yes. It will work. But, it causes undo stress on the other servers if everyone was cross linking the images on their page.
A better way is to save the image into your file on your server. Lets say you save it as beavis.gif then your code would be: <IMAGE SRC="beavis.gif"> or <IMAGE SRC="beavis.gif" ALIGN=RIGHT>
Notice how the first reference lists http://www.gifworld...etc. This works but, you are relying on the other server for the image. It is better to store the image in your file. Then, your reference to it is much shorter because HTML will look for the image in your file. Unless you specifically give it a site name with all that http://www... junk.

<IMG SRC="/pictures/icons/lines/blue_mrble_thick.gif">
This is the reference to a blue line stored on Geocities on my clients page. The coding may seem strange at first.
All the slashes are files and sub files of the server your page is located, in this case Geocities.

Geocities has one big file at the root level called "pictures". Then they must have several files but, you want "icons." Then in "icons" you want the "lines." Then in "lines" you want the particular file called "blue_mrble_thick.gif"

All these files get tiring, especially if you have to hand type your html. So, like I said before, it is best to save the pics to your file then you'd only have to type:
<A HREF="blue_mrble_thick.gif">

How To Set Links

The following is code for a link:
<IMG SRC="/pictures/whiteball.gif"> <A HREF="http://www.beavis-butthead.com"> Beavis And Butt-Head Do America Site
And, will look like this:

Beavis And Butt-Head Do America Site

Links is the colored text that is underlined. When you click on them they take you to another page. How? The first part <IMG SRC=...> is a picture of a ball before the link - doesn't do anything but "indents" the link for you.
The next part is the actual link:
the command line is <A HREF="location"> text or image here then

Broken down:
1) <A HREF= says your doing a "Hyper REFerence" to
2)"location" you have to enclose in quotes. If not in your server add the http stuff. If one of your pages you can just put <A HREF="flying.html"> note, you don't need the http stuff. Also, location is CaSe SeNsItIvE. Be careful here. The text you write after the > up to </A> is the text that will be underlined for your link.

Guestbooks

The following is a client "guestbook" text and has a mistake. Do you see it?

<a href="http://www.Lpage.com/wgb/wgbsign.dbm?owner= anyoneUSA">Sign My Guestbook </a> <IMG ALIGN="RIGHT" SRC="http://www.rocketshop.holowww.com/rockanim.gif> 
<a href="http://www.Lpage.com/wgb/wgbview.dbm? owner=anyoneUSA"> View My Guestbook </a>

This coding is missing a quote " after the word rockanim.gif in <IMG ALIGN="RIGHT" SRC="http://www.rocketshop.holowww.com/ rockanim.gif>

The lack of " will confuse a browser, the picture rockanim won't show and, doesn't let the "View My Guestbook" link work.

This is your mail line. One slight error here that won't let folks email you. Do you see it? Remember: If you open/start a command you have to close it...

Line code:
E-Mail Me At <A HREF=mailto:[email protected] [email protected] </A>

Look at this part:
<A HREF=mailto:[email protected] someone

They started an <A HREF.. then a two < brackets in a row confuses browsers. They needed to add a > bracket before the <:I> Like this:
<A HREF=mailto:[email protected]> someone

See the difference? If not, let me know. I'll try to explain better.

Now to answer your specific questions: At 18:46 5/15/97 -0500, a client wrote (regarding their site:
..and tell me how I could improve it please. How did you make more than one page (ex. Home, Military, etc.)

You create separate HTML files for your other pages. An HTML page is very simple with basic elements. I usually have one base code on my computer as a text file. Then, I change, add or delete elements and save as name.html like flying.html Then you upload the file to your geocities site (Geocities has an easy way to do that through their homesteader utilities). If you are on a dos/pc your system may only allow you to create pages with three character extensions (.doc, .htm, .ppt, etc) if that is the case upload the page then rename with .html

I discussed linking above. Just create a link like
<A HREF="flying.html">Flying</A>
and should work.

- and how did you get that gray on the side?

Backgrounds are images. I had to use an image that is one inch tall and several inches wide. The left side is grey, the rest is white.
When a browser loads a background image it repeats it. So my background is very wide but short. The browser repeats it several times when you look at the page.

Other ways to learn this code stuff:
- when you're at a site - and it's finished loading- click on "view source." In Netscape it is:
View / Document Source.

This will show you how others did it.

The question:
- Hi, it's me again. Where can I find the best backgrounds and how do I put them on my site?

Backgrounds load up as "tiles." For example. For my gray stripe background I use an image that is very wide and short. There is a bit of gray on the left and a lot of white to the right. So, when the page is loaded the image repeats over and over to create a long grey stripe on white.

Other background images can be small squares that tile together.

All the background images are like other web page images. If you click on a background with the right mouse button you'll get options that will let you save or view the image. Once you save the image you can use or manipulate to fit the needs of your page. (see comment below for graphic/background locations)

The question(s):
- What are some places where I can find good backgrounds and what commands do I put an the editor to make them work?
Also, where are some places I could get sound files, and how do I load them on?
Thanks for answering all this but you are the best person I can find that knows all this junk.

Here is a sample of the code for a background:
<BODY TEXT="#000000" BGCOLOR="#C0C0C0"
LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#FF0000"
BACKGROUND="lgraybg.gif">

It says how to format the body of your page with the BODY tag and you have several sections you can adjust:
TEXT, BGCOLOR, LINK, VLING and BACKGROUND

The first four have values that representing colors. example, 000000 is black, C0C0C0 is gray and so on.
You can specify a background color without loading a specific background. In the sample above it is the part that says BGCOLOR="#C0C0C0"
Pay close attention to the quotes" and the pound sign# when writing this code. Also, when you are done with all the elements close with a > bracket.

Also, since this is the begining of a "body tag" close it at the end of your document like this: </BODY> usually the next command is </HTML> which closes/ends the page.

Here's a link to a color chart at my site:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/ 6063/clrchart.gif

For a background just add: BACKGROUND="filenam.gif/jpg"
In my sample at the top of this page my tag is:
BACKGROUND="lgraybg.gif" which is for my gray background.

Extensive backgrounds can slow the quality and load time for a page. Remember to use small file sizes and uncluttered backgrounds. Also, keep in mind text in relation to the background with a variety of browsers. One of my early pages had a black vertical line, like the gray one I use now. But some browsers don't support the way my page is set up (tables) so the black text would wrap onto the black part of the background and make it unreadable. So, in your quest for the perfect page keep in mind what other browser may not do what your browser does.

Here are a couple links for you:

Icons, sounds and backgrounds at: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/6603/

Another place: http://www.ist.net/clipart/index.html

Regarding sound on your site.
You have two ways of doing this, that I know of.
One is .wav
and the other is .mid

Wave files are accurate representations of a sound. But, are very large files for a short amount of time.
Sample wave file here: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/6063/nothere.html

Midi files (.mid) are usually very small for the time. But, they can sound very phoney. I have a midi file on my hawaii page, that sounds ok. It's at: http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanavera/6063/visithawaii.html

Go here for the webmaster resource for a midi player and code for your site: http://www.liveupdate.com/crescendo.html

The following is the code I use for sound on my page. I got the code from the company above. Note the "song" is a file I uploaded to my site. Much like a icon, background or html page. The code below refers to a specific player (crescendo) and uses the noted song. Also, there are brackets at the begining and end of the code.

Good luck with your pages. If you have any specific questions, send me an email.

Timothy

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

Thanks for the help!

I want to thank the following folks for their help

(Some don't even know they helped me!)

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