The purpose of the page is:
• To give info if you have an existing Home Page
• To give you a starting point for you to create your
"Own Home Page"
• To give you links as a resource for your questions
OK... You have a home page
and people are not visiting the entire page...
Your special page..
Your Creation...
Which you put hours into... *Sigh*
Why not ???
Because of loading time !!!!!
Life is short
and unless it is a friend or
someone that has a specific reason
or they have the latest and greatest,
"hubba hubba", faster than light
50,000,000 GHZ processor chip,
then 99% of your visitors will leave unless your page loads FAST..
If it loads fast, they tend to keep reading as your page loads...
So, how do you get it to load fast ?
• Limit File Sizes
• Format Pic and Image Loading
• Make Music (Midi) Files Optional
An explanation on
each of the above follows.
Plus information on
• Desk Top Publishing
and
• Creating your Own Home Page
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• File Sizes •
Ok... you are so happy that you have a
500K pic of you climbing Mt. Everest
and a 250K animated pic of the universe
and the 250K midi music
which is the 30 minute version
of the Overture of 1812...
You love your page...
and guess what...
visitors hate it!..
Why ?
Cause they got BORED
due to loading time
and LEFT !
and your page has something to say
and you lost your audience.
So.. Rule Number 1 is
to keep your files
(pics, graphics and midi files)
as small as possible.
A smaller file does not
necessarily reduce the quality
of your page concept.
Choose files that get your point across
and are as small as possible.
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• Pics and Images •
A puter loads a page by the directions
that you give it.
It tries to load an image first.
Text loads quickly,
but is held up
while images are loading.
If you tell format the page first
it loads the text
and then fills in the images.
Thus, your visitor will be able
to read the text on your page
while the images are loading
versus "twidling their thumbs"
while waiting on the images.
This is a very important issue
by keeping the attention ot audience.
You may not apprecite this idle time
when you visit your own page
because the images may already
be stored in your cache.
To speed up loading, first
determine the dimensions of
each of your images
(width and height) in pixels.
This can be found by using an image viewer.
or, with Netscape and a MAC
Open your "GeoCities" File Manager,
find the image and click view
and the image opens.
then pull down the View Menu of Netscape
and go to Document Source.
It will give the height and width in pixels.
or, with Netscape and a PC
Open your "GeoCities" File Manager,
find the image and click view
and the image opens.
Look at the top of the page and
in the band is the width and height pixels.
Example: "mypic.gif" has
a width of 92 and height of 77 pixels.
Then change your commands
to reflect the size of each image.
FROM:
< img src= "mypic.gif" >
TO:
< img src= "mypic.gif" width="92" height="77">
PS - Make sure you leave a "space" between
the gif" and the w of width and
the 92" and the h of height.
Do this for EACH of your images.
and this is not needed for your background
images as they load last anyway.
Want to see the above in action,
.... to see it for yourself
.... Live, Here and Now ???
Then visit the following two links
and please realize that
the graphics are not loaded
until the archer shoots the arrow.
(They will open an additional browser)
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• Music (Midi Files) •
OK, now your files are small
and you formatted your images and
you love "Mandy" by Barry Manilow
(and I don't) *giggle*..
And I just want to visit your page
for the "meat and potatoes"..
but I have to sit and wait for music to load
and then... "Mandy"... *pout*...
So.... Why not make music a visitor's option
like I have on my pages....
It took me hours to search and
find the command
"Music by Visitor Choice".....
And the command is so simple.
< a href= "yourmusic.mid" target= "smf ">
Click ME to
play music < /a >
PS - Make sure you leave a "space" between
the mid" and the t of target.
This opens a new browser.
If you have different music
on additional pages
just assure that your page visitor
closes out of the existing music browser
before going onto the next.
I am STILL trying to find out
how to eliminate the step
of going back to close
the prior loaded music
when you want to load new music.
If anyone knows of a different way
then PLEASE advise me by Email.
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• Desk Top Publishing •
Isn't it cool that you can simply type
and do italics and blink
and do bold and underline
and change fonts and colors and sizes !
But please think about the comfort
to the eye...
When you were a child,
you learned to read books
without italics or crazy font designs.
You read a Roman type font
called Century Schoolbook
and then went onto a newspaper
where they simply reduced the font size.
Your eye is used to reading Roman style type.
If all the net and your puter
had this font available
it would be on my pages.
Do NOT use italics
for body text, poems or long headlines...
Even though it may look pretty,
your eye does not feel comfortable
reading italics.
Use special effects sparingly...
Let me repeat what I typed here so your eye can see what I mean.....
Isn't it cool that you can simply type
and do italicsand
and do bold and underline
and change fonts and colors and sizes !
But please think about the comfort
to the eye...
When you were a child,
you learned to read books
without italics or crazy font designs.
You read a Roman type font
called Century Schoolbook
and then went onto a newspaper
where they simply reduced the font size.
Your eye is used to reading Roman style type.
If all the net and your puter
had this font available
it would be on my pages.
DO not use italics
for body text, poems or long headlines...
Even though it may look pretty,
your eye does not feel comfortable
reading italics
Use special
effects
See how difficult it is to read?
Again, use the special font stuff
in headlines and not in body text.
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So you want to create your own home page ?
Making a page is simple.
Just type commands.
You start with
< html >
and end every page with
< /html >
and everything that you type
between these two commands
is YOUR page...
YOUR creation...
Make your page represent YOU...
Here is where the fun begins.
To create your own Home Page,
the first thing you need to do
is to find a location where to keep it
and a server that will support it.
There is no question that the place to be
is GeoCities and it is FREE.
I did not know anything about HTML
and in one month
(and 1,000,000+ hours
of learning by trial & error),
this HP was created.
Start by clicking on the following link
and establishing your own,
Free Home Page residence.
Then utilize their various information pages
as well as the following links
to help you.
Thank you GeoCities
for allowing me the opportunity
and support to create
this Home Page!
And the BEST help page found is
the first link - Sue's HTML guide.
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And if you have a specifc HTML question
DO NOT Email me with it
(Unless you send a bag of money)... *giggle*
Visit THIS link and post it.
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Use your "Back" button on your browser to return to Archer's Home Page or click below
And if you have any questions (send money)
or comments, then please Email me.
