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Done with your drink? Don't spill on the computer.
You've finished the tutorial, all I want to do now is to tell you of some of the stuff folks expect on the World Wide Web as well as what is frowned upon. You're truly a citizen of the world when you place your site on the internet -- and you want to get along well with your cyber-neighbors. You can make lasting friendships with folks in other countries or in your own back yard. But ya gotta be a nice guy or others will quickly begin to shun you. Let's just list a few. Most are common good sense anyway.
1) Don't take from others without permission. You have to place yourself in the other guy's shoes. He or she worked long and hard on his site just as you are doing on yours. Maybe he's got a graphic that you really like -- or some music files. All pages are automatically copyrighted these days so you're actually breaking the law if you just 'take' stuff off of someone else's page without asking. Besides, I've found that permission is really easy to get. Usually just a friendly email requesting that you be allowed to use their material will get you what you want. Sometimes they ask that you give them a credit line or a link. This is easy to do and will not detract from your web site. As a matter of fact, you will gain great respect by demonstrating your honesty.
2) Don't 'steal' bandwidth. By this I mean that if someone allows you to use some of their files on your page, be sure to download the file(s) onto your server -- don't draw from theirs. Just linking to their file (you can link to their site -- it's a common and appreciated practise) does two things. a) it slows down the internet by causing more file transfer traffic and b) you may cause the person you draw from to incur additional service charges (money folks, money) if he or she is only permitted so many 'hits'/page downloads by his server before he has to pay an extra service fee. The proper thing to do is to load whatever you are given to your own web server space and use it from there. [It'll usually download faster to your page, too]
3) Your web site title should be informative or evocative, but never dishonest. Telling others (by way of a site title) that yours is the greatest site that ever was is a promise you'll never be able to keep. Folks will see right through you and never make a return visit.
4) Make your site easy to read. I don't know how many times I've been to a site that has its content in electric blue text on a flaming red background. God, the eyestrain !!! And while we're at it, stay away from dark blue text on a black background. It's next to impossible to see. Try different combinations of text and a background to make your golden prose easy for the visitor to read.
5) Your page should download fairly quickly. This usually means in less than a minute for someone with today's standard, a 33.6 modem. Studies have shown that if a surfer doesn't see something of interest on your page in the first 20 or 30 seconds of downloading, he goes somewhere else. If you have a lot of graphic files, organize them into subpages off of the main page -- and it's best if you use clickable thumbnails on the page. Your viewer will visit the images he's interested in.
6) Don't over use techniques. Animated gifs are great and can add tremediously to your site, but if you have gobs and gobs of them then your web page looks like Las Vegas on acid. Once I visited a page that used blinking text. Blinking text is okay to catch a person's eye and draw them to a passage you would like them to read, but it should be restricted to a word or small phrase. The author I visited had a whole paragraph . Talk about difficult to read. Every time I tried to start the text would disappear, and when it re-appeared, I had lost my place. Arrrrgh !
7) Organize your material. Have a theme and stick to it. Items apart from the central theme should be on a separate web page and provided as a link.
8) Don't TYPE IN ALL CAPS OR HAVE A LOT OF VERY LARGE TEXT. Typing in all caps is considered 'shouting' on the internet and is usually looked on with disfavor. Moreover, if you use large text in your entire document-- such as having everything appear as a level one header -- the visitor has to scroll and scroll and scroll to read it. I doubt he will ever stay long enough to read everything you have written. Large text or caps should be reserved for headings only.
9) Be mindfull of your audience. There's all kinds of sites and material out there in cyber space, but a surfer has come to your page for a particular reason -- something you've promised to deliver. If you've advertised a Walt Disney site with, say, reviews on the animated feature films and cartoons, a lot of younger kids are going to be visiting you. It's inappropriate to have links to the hottest adult sex sites in the world on that page.
Well, that about covers it. Good manners on the internet and integrety are pretty much common sense kind of things. Just think of how you'd like to be treated and treat others the same way. You'll go far.
Okay! You've done well. You've made it to the end. Now go get your cap and gown then meet me next door. Commencement ceremonies to take place shortly.
