May 2000

April 2000

Since our last column we have granted awards to two sites. We have also reviewed a couple of other sites, although for one reason or another we have not granted them an award.

The first recipient, Flute Pastels, has been given the base award plus the gold pin for content. And what a wealth of content this site contains! Here you will find out how flutes are made, how to play the flute better, info about flute teaching, repertoire, manufacturers, famous players, and styles and periods of music in history, and much more.

The next site, already a Vienna Award recipient, has been awarded the whole set of note pins, for content (in general), design, and notable specific content, in this case downloadable sheet music. The Stringstuff Page is a site especially appealing to students, teachers, and afficianados of the string family.

Both sites are well and simply designed and very easy to navigate, are updated frequently, and are great examples of what we look for in a Vienna site.

As for the non-awardee applicants, our policy is to let them know in what areas we believe them to be lacking, and offer suggestions as to what they can do to improve their sites.

Naturally, we don't expect anyone to feel they must accept our suggestions, but we do encourage dialog about the site. Often, a site may fall short through an incomplete understanding of the Geocities Terms of Service, or be a bit awkward or undeveloped, and may be easily improved with a few simple changes or additions.

If you, dear reader, have a site that you believe would meet our requirements (see May 2000 EV) please feel most welcome to apply. Rest assured that if for some reason you don't qualify we won't hold you up publicly as an example of what not to do, but will instead point out to you privately what we see as shortcomings, and offer suggestions to help to perfect your site.

HINT OF THE MONTH: Understanding URLs

Every document available on the World Wide Web, be it an HTML file, an image file (.gif or .jpg), a sound file (.mid, or .wav), or any other type of file, has a unique address, called a Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. For example, the URL for this page is "www.oocities.org/Vienna/5000/ev/ev0900.html." The part "www.oocities.org" is what is known as a "domain name," which identifies Geocities and "Vienna," "5000," and "ev" are nested directories which contain all the files which make up Vienna, Vienna Online, and Evaluating Vienna, respectively, and then "ev0900.html" identifies the specific file you are reading right now. Simple huh?

However, if no specific file is requested, the server will respond by sending out a file in the last directory specified named "index.html." If no such file exists, the server will create one, which will be a simple list of the files in the directory. You can see this for yourself by clicking this link: www.oocities.org/Vienna/5000/ev

And, to belabor the point, www.oocities.org/Vienna/5000 will get you the Vienna Online homepage, www.oocities.org/Vienna will get you the Vienna homepage, and www.oocities.org/ will get you the Geocities homepage.

Websites at Geocities have URLs that follow the format "www.oocities.org/username" or "www,oocities.com/Neighborhood/Street/number." When a URL is given without a specific file request, the server will automatically attempt to send out a file named index.html.

If a viewer found the site from scanning the listings on the Vienna homepage or other Yahoo!/Geocities page listing, the link would take him to the index page.

So, you may ask, what? Well, I have noticed that many of the sites that have been presented for review have URLs that are of the format "www.oocities.org/username/pagetitle.html."

Now there's nothing wrong with setting up a link to a specific page in your site, but generally I expect that the website will have as its homepage or major entry page a file named "index.html." Indeed, when you register as a homesteader in Geocities, an index page is generated for you that essentially says, "Hi, my name is (your username) but I haven't moved in yet," or words to that effect.

When I receive a URL that says "www.oocities.org/username/pagetitle.html," I'll look at the page, but I also like to check "www.oocities.org/username/" just to see what the index page looks like.

In many cases, what I find is the original, system generated index page, or, as we often call it, the move-in page. Further checking usually reveals that the site is being built using the Page Wizards or Page Builder. These page-building engines are great for allowing a novice builder to build good looking pages easily, but as they can only edit pages built using them the true index page is often simply abandoned or neglected.

The solution to this dilemma is to simply rename the page you wish to be your primary entry page to "index.html" using File Manager. If you wish to retain the original move-in page for reference, be sure to rename it to something else, such as "oldindex.html" first.

Although the Page Builder and Page Wizards can certainly help you to build good looking pages simply and easily, as time passes and your experience and expertise increase you will want to learn to write pages in HTML using the advanced HTML editor or some such similar text editor. You will find that your control of how the page displays is much greater and your range of expression is greatly enhanced.

By the way, if you would like to stroll along the neighborhood and see what your neighbors are up to, You can see a block by block listing using these links:
www.oocities.org/Vienna/blocks.html
www.oocities.org/Vienna/Choir/blocks.html
www.oocities.org/Vienna/Opera/blocks.html
www.oocities.org/Vienna/Strasse/blocks.html