On this page, I will show you all (as much as I can recall) of the tools/sites/software that I used to create this web site. First, let me make one thing really clear. I am not a professional webmaster. Therefore I require all of the help I can get. In addition, I wanted to create a site that didn't look like a rehash of a HTML template. Thankfully, there are many others on the 'Net who feel the same way. So as they have helped me, I in turn provide this information to you for assistance in building your web site. I will update this page as I come across new and interesting stuff.

When I first started this site, I attempted to use Microsoft Image Composer version 1.0 (part of FrontPage). Perhaps, the software has improved by now, but the results I got at that time were downright amateurish. And since the only way I could get the resulting graphics into a web page was to cut and paste, that seemed to mess up the image I made even further. Below is some my handiwork.

Real professional looking eh? Notice the "bleeding" between the letters and the green oval. Also, its not transparent. Compare this with the new image. Major difference!

While redesigning this page, I realized I would need a lot of help with creating graphics since I don't have the inclination to develop my artistic skills. So I started to search the web for such tools and was astonished to find programs that could (more or less) make images for me.

This site is the first one I found. I used it to create the "banners" on nearly all of the "first level" pages. Here is one of the pages that has one.

Here are the values I used (defaults used for all fields not listed) :

I used the program PrintKey to "cut out" the two images above from the corresponding web page.

Once I had the images created and downloaded, I opened them up into this program. This is how I added the "shadowing" effect (it is located under the "Effects" menu). That is why I saved the banners in gif format; so I could use this program.

  • 3D Text Generator (sorry no button available for this site)
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    Here is a page that shows the images I created with this site (Colleague/Benefactor graphics).

    Here are the values I used (defaults used for all fields not listed) :

    I used the program PrintKey to "cut out" the two images above from the corresponding web page. You have to "fiddle" with the "Text transformation" fields in order to get your input text to fit inside the "box". In addition, you want to use this site late at night to avoid the dreaded "Sorry! Another person is using this page. Please wait for a while and try again. Thanks for your patience!" message.

    I used this site to create the images on the main page (under the "Start your journey by clicking below :" verbiage). Next, you want to use this site late at night to avoid having your graphics job at the end of a 40 entry queue.

    Check this page for a list of colors to use when creating your images with these sites.

    The gold/marble bars came from the Geobuilder program within the Geocities site.

    I used this program to create the animated gifs that are located on the opening page, the e-mail address page, the news page, and even this page. Also, I used it to create the "Program Code" button and the buttons on the "More About Jay" page. Click on the button to download a demonstration copy.

    This site literally has a ton of stuff you can download for use in your web site. I downloaded some of the "under construction" and "Pink Panther" animated gifs.

    I used this site to create a banner for the Yahoo! Geocities' Banner Exchange program. From what I've noticed, I think a lot of people have used this site as well.

    Here are other sites you can check out for some neat stuff to use in developing your web site.

    Check this site for the program I used to create the "airport flipboard" animated GIF on this page.

    Check out this site for a FREE graphics viewer for Win 95/98/NT.

    Check out this site for FREE graphics that can be used to substitute for the old "boring" standard horizontal rule. An example of which can be seen on this page (down at the bottom). In addition, there are several "holiday" related graphics (which I downloaded from the site) that I'll be using at various times during the year.

    Opps! I was about to forget the most important part of developing a web site : HTML. For the record I use Microsoft FrontPage Express. It provides a real good mix of both "graphical" web page development and "bare bones" HTML coding. The FrontPage editor is good for WYSIWYG editing, but there are times when I need to tweak the HTML code in order to get the web page looking the way I want it. As you probably know, HTML files are just regular text files that can be modified with either Windows Notepad or Wordpad. Next, whenever I get "stumped", I refer to the HTML reference guide at Netscape. Finally, if you want a good introductory book on HTML, I'd highly recommend the following title : New Perspectives on Creating Web Pages with HTML -- Comprehensive. You can obtain it at the link below. Be warned, it is a tad bit expensive ($41) ... but it's worth it! Or you can do what I did and let the company you work for buy it. :-)

     

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