Ti House

Do you want to have your own webpage but don't know how to go about doing it?

I designed this webpage using raw HTML. It's actually not too hard. You just have to buy a book and follow the tutorials.

Yeah, yeah, it's easier said than done. I know. I tried it.

It was only after I did a one-year post graduate course in Multimedia that I finally had the confidence to do it.

In the course, we learnt to use a lot of software tools like Dreamweaver, Director, Flash etc. It was great. But when I got out into the real world, I realised that most people don't use them.

Nobody wants to invest in a couple of hundred dollars worth of software when they don't know how to use it or are unsure whether it will be useful or not. And even then, the software gets outdated so quickly.

When I went for a holiday in Coral Bay in Western Australia, I wanted to check out the accommodations that were available there. I don't mean the 5-star hotels which I'm sure have great webpages with fantastic user interface. What I was looking for was a backpacker's place which showed me a map on how close it was to the sea and to the bus station, a picture of the premises and how the beds looked like, the room rates and availability, and contact information.

Do you know how many places I could find? ONE. And guess where I stayed? In that place, of course! In fact, there were about seven backpacker places there but only Ningaloo Club had a webpage which I could find by typing "coral bay+backpackers" in Google.

So I thought, "Hmm... all these businesses out there, they need to have a simple webpage which people can look up when they want to buy something. Why don't I offer my services?"

So here's the deal:

I can help set up the page for you but you have to take care of it yourself after that. You have to give me the content. I will help in making it readable and interesting (hey, did I mention that I was a former journalist?). I will design the website and make sure all the links work and everything. Then I will give you a crash course on how to update the content.

Believe me, it's not as hard as it seems. All you need is a computer and a simple text editor like notepad or bbedit. I think the most important thing to make a successful website is maintenance. If the content is constantly updated and fresh, people will keep visiting it.

If you are game to try your hand at making your own website, drop me an email and we'll see what we can do.

Cheers!

I used to work at The Star. It's an English language newspaper in Malaysia.

I've also worked at the Kalgoorlie Miner, one of WA's oldest newspapers (established in 1895), located at 127, Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie WA 6430.

I'm now at the Redland Shire Council. I am a marketing and communications advisor there and I help to manage their websites.