NetBloke.com - Planning the Web site - Part Two
Publication Date: 06/07/2001
ISSN 1445-1360
Publication Date: 06/07/2001
ISSN 1445-1360
G'day!
Having a good week are you? Well, Jennifer Fowler, an avid NetBloke reader and top sort, has been awarded the first prize for telling her friend about NetBloke, so she definitely is having a good week! Jennifer will be receiving a $20 Amazon gift voucher in her inbox soon! You can check Jen out at www.dougandjen.com.
Talking about weeks, this was my first 4th of July in America. Lets just say that Americans must spend a small fortune on fireworks. The one horse town I am living in had a fireworks spectacular that lasted for around 30 minutes. I have to say I was surprised at the length and quality of the display. For someone who has seen the New Years fireworks on Sydney Harbor, you could say I am not easily impressed anymore.
You will also notice that I have set up some easy to remember web addresses to make accessing NetBloke easier. Firstly you might have noticed that the latest issue can now be found at newsletter.netbloke.com and secondly for those of you who keep an eye on me you can go to webcam.netbloke.com. I hope this makes things that little bit easier for everyone!
This week we have part two in my "Creating Your Web Site" series. This weeks Internet Tip will focus on the planning of your Web site. I am going to simply share with you some of the knowledge I have built up over the years. It may help you, then again you may be more advanced and not need to read it.
I also received lots of answers to the question posed last week and I got a couple of answers for the unanswered question from the week before. You blokes and sheilas really know how to help people out! So thanks and keep them rolling in.
To round off this week we have an icky joke from my mother in law, Faye. If it doesn't get you reaching for the mouthwash nothing will!
That is about it for now so until next week seeya later!
Nathan Allan
So you want to build a Web site. Well way before you decide what programs you will use to build it, or where you are going to host it, you need to plan what it is going to be.
Web sites can be for anything and everything. If you try searching on just about anything you can think of, there will be someone who has a web site for it. Most Web sites can be categorized into business and personal sites. When planning them out you can use pretty much the same methodology, just on a different scale.
What I do when I plan a Web site is grab a sheet of paper (or Microsoft PowerPoint) and draw a whole lot of boxes that represent the different pages of the site. Normally it will end up fanning out from the home page (this is entry page where most people first enter the site) of the site. You basically just categorize the things you want to put on your site (i.e. biography, interests, resume, family photos).
At this stage it is much easier to chop and change your pages around than when you start to actually build the site.
At this point also start thinking of what you want the web site to look like. Do you want lots of pictures, which will make the site slower to load, or do you want to keep it lean and quick with mainly text?
I would also recommend keeping away from using music files and big pictures, as this will slow down the loading of your site. However, if you must use these components, experiment with them and do not put them on your homepage. People may get tired of waiting for your site to load and leave for somewhere else.
Finally remember that you can add and change your Web site as time progresses, so do not get too bogged down in the planning.
When you are surfing a well-designed larger Web site you are almost certain to come across a button or link that is called the Site Map. A Site Map is basically an index of all of the important pages of a Web site. If the navigation of the site is slightly confusing or you simply cannot find what you need, going to the Site Map is the best thing to do. This should show you all the major sections and what is in each of them, with direct links to specific pages.
I thoroughly recommend that anyone who has a Web site (or is building one) of twenty or more pages have a Site Map that contains direct links to all of the important parts of your site.
For those of you who want to see an example go to the Site Map we built for the Sausage Web site at:
http://www.sausagetools.com/sitemap/index.html
Here is another great Web site developed by some home-schooled kids. It goes to show that you do not have to be that old to know a lot about a subject, as these guys and girls are pretty cluey when it comes to the Web!
They rank their tutorials so that you can immediately see if it is at your level or not. This is especially helpful to the beginner who does not know a lot of the jargon yet.
http://www.designharbor.org
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is at the forefront of Web standards and technology. They set the standards and help manage the steps forward that the industry makes.
This site is only for those of you who want to see just how technical the Internet and in particular the web can get!
http://www.w3.org
I want to use this spot myself this week to ask you what your favourite Web Editor or HTML editor is. So what is it?
I will list your responses next issue.
Answer
Last weeks question was from Mick Combs:
"Is there any way to reduce the size of the "Outlook.pst" and "Archive.pst"?
It seems every time I mess with them, I get error messages every time I try
to open Outlook 98 and have to put the files back intact in order to use
Outlook 98!"
I got a lot of great suggestions and answers, which I will forward on to Mick. I was going to publish them all but it would make the newsletter way to long!
Vic sent in some useful tips:
"IMHO, there are a couple of steps for this
1 - Don't forget to delete all those emails that you sent 2 months ago
2 - don't forget to delete all those emails that you deleted but are now sitting in the "Deleted" folder - this works exactly like the "Recycle Bin" on your computer, nothing is actually deleted until you delete it totally from that folder.
3 - And now after doing all that it is time to compact your *.pst files.
Open the "File" menu and click on the "Data File Management" option.
This will open a window that gives you the option to "compact" your
*.pst files. Highlighting either the "Archive Folders" item or the
"Personal Folders" item and clicking on the "Settings" button will bring
up a new window wherein you can click the compact button and presto you
Outlook will start compressing away. Depending on the amount of
compacting needed and the time since you last did this and the speed of
your computer - it should only take a couple of minutes."
Michael from Net To Net Technologies had this suggestion:
"First, if he isn't already doing so, Mick should make sure he Auto Archives his Outlook weekly. I usually set mine to archive anything older than three months, and set it to run every Monday morning as soon as I start up Outlook. This is something you need to set up for each folder in your mail, as well as your calendar. Whenever you create a new folder in Outlook, you need to set up auto-archiving for that folder. As far as I know, there is no global auto-archive setting.
Second, make sure you are deleting items in your Outlook Trash regularly. If you aren't, the trash can really build up. I set my Outlook to delete the trash when I shut down Outlook, but if you aren't comfortable with that you can set it to auto archive. A month old is probably best, but make sure you tell it to delete the files rather than put them in archive.pst.
Third, I divide my archive.pst file up into quarterly archives. I create an archive for each quarter year, i.e. 2001-Q1.pst, 2001-Q2.pst. At the beginning of each quarter, I open archive.pst, create a new archive file named for the past quarter, and move all items from that quarter into the new archive file, deleting them from archive.pst after I do so. This makes for more, but smaller and more manageable archive files.
Hope this was helpful."
There were some more answers sent in which I will forward on to Mick. Thanks everyone!
It looks like Joe's question from two weeks ago has some answers!
"Help NetBloke,
I can keep this pretty simple, I am looking for a way to rename the computers of a large network. This would be run on an NT server as a start up program. I have been looking for a while and haven't been able to locate one. If you have any suggestions about a program like this send me a note and maybe I will have some kittens".
Ernie had this suggestion:
"I am no Net Tech - head, but I get Furo's TechSpecial edition from the now growing Lockergnome Family, and his July 2, 2001 issue has a script which may help Joe."
Check it out at:
http://www.lockergnome.com/issues/techspecialist/20010702.html
Rick also tried out the Lockergnome chatroom for answers:
"Thank you for the newsletter, I enjoy it! :-) Regarding the unanswered question about renaming network computers, I thought I would take it up in the Lockergnome chat room (where I'm known as "SedaGive") & pose the question...the log that follows contains some thoughts on the subject.
SedaGive Hi, TGC! Wanna help a Netbloke reader?
SedaGive It's a newsletter...they've been working on this prob for a week:
"I can keep this pretty simple, I am looking for a way to rename the computers of a large network. This would be run on an NT server as a start up program."
TGC As long as they're not domain controllers
^furo^ If they're members of a domain, it will throw off the domain accounts.
TGC that too
TGC you'll have to recreate accounts for all the computers in the domani
TGC err...domain
gneato I don't like domani pizza
^furo^ Agreed. You could have them use the registry hack to add additional NetBIOS names, then change the domain accounts as needed. Lots of legwork, but works ok in most cases.
TGC Domain controllers themselves can't be changed...
TGC Can't remember if both PDCs and BDCs can't be changed or just PDCs...you might be able to demote the PDC, rename it, and then promote it again...
^furo^ Both TGC.
(I think ^furo^ fell asleep at that point)
Hope this helped a little bit! It's too technical for my own level of network understanding, ack!"
There is a solution in there but it looks a little tricky and technical!
If you have a question of your own, contact me.
Here is a joke my Mother in law sent in. Good to see that the relo's are reading NetBloke!
HAM SANDWICH
(This is a true story. If you have children you can relate to this father.)
As ham sandwiches go, it was perfection. A thick slab of ham, a fresh bun, crisp lettuce and plenty of expensive, light brown, gourmet mustard. The corners of my jaw are aching in anticipation. I carried it to the picnic table in our backyard, picked it up with both hands, but was stopped by my wife suddenly at my side.
"Hold Johnny (our 6 week-old son) while I get the phone," she said. Johnny was balanced between Dad's left elbow and shoulder and was reaching again for the ham sandwich. Dad noticed a streak of mustard on his fingers.
I love mustard.
I had no napkin.
I licked it off.
It was not mustard!!!
No man ever put a baby down faster. It was the first and only time Dad ever sprinted with his tongue protruding. With a washcloth in each hand he did the sort of routine shoeshine boys do, only he did it on his tongue.
Later (after she stopped crying from laughing so hard) my wife said, "Now you know why they call that mustard 'Poupon'."
