Website Design 1
Basic Information

If you read our page on LEARNING HTML and you now want to seriously begin designing and building your own webpages, then you MUST have a BASIC Understanding of a few things first... Please Read Thru All Of The Following ...

1. What Is A Computer? It's a very complex machine that has Hardware (all the physical parts) and Software (all the non-physical parts... stored on it's Hard Drive and in it's Memory) with which you can use to improve the value of your whole life!!! It can assist you in many ways to perform actions using it's stored programs... to send and receive E Mail... to look-up virtually ANYTHING about ANYTHING that you want to know... Etc. Etc. Etc.
2. What Is The Internet? It's basically ALL the Computers in the World... connected up together via thousands of cables, lines etc. ... so that you can contact other Computers and exchange information with them as mentioned above!!! You need to connect your Computer to the Internet whenever you want to use it, by any of several ways... You can use a SLOW Dial-Up connection thru your telephone line, or better ... you can use a FAST connection thru your telephone line, called DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) or you can connect via a Cable connection thru a Cable Company...
3. What Is A Web Browser? It's a software Program on a Computer that you use to find Webpages... Internet Explorer from Microsoft is the one most people use, but there are many others available such as Firefox, Opera, Netscape Etc. Web Browsers also allow you to access WEB BASED EMAIL PROGRAMS like Yahoo Mail or Hot Mail for example...
4. What is a Webpage? It's a document that is located on some Computer somewhere that you can read and use, by using your Web Browser, but you must be connected to the Internet first... It's actually Downloaded temporarily to your Computer while you read it...
5. What Is Downloading? It's copying a document while you are on the Internet (from another Computer) to your Computer... Uploading conversely, is copying a document (from your Computer) to another Computer while you're on the Internet... NOTE: After a Program is Downloaded, it sometimes needs you to INSTALL it... which is usually automatically indicated in the instructions as you Download it...
6. What Is A Program? It's Computer Software that performs certain tasks or functions... you can Download Programs from the Internet, and you can Upload them to the Internet too... Examples of Programs: A Web Browser, A Text Editor, A Spreadsheet Editor, Etc.
7. How Is A Web Page Built? It is built by a Web Author using HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and by also using a few other languages, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), Javascript, Etc. Authors write the HTML Code and build the Source Code File for the webpage, which web browsers then can "read" and interpret and render the actual viewable webpage for viewing... It could be built by using certain Computer Programs called WYSIWYG Editors (What You See Is What You Get)... like Microsoft's Frontpage, or Dreamweaver... BUT if you use these you will NEVER become a good web page builder and author, because you won't learn what's actually "going on" when the page is built! If on the other hand, you learn HTML, and CSS, which are very easy to learn at first, with study and perseverance, and use any Text Editor and write all your own HTML and CSS Source Code and then Upload your HTML Source Code Document to your chosen online Web Host (by using an FTP Program on your Computer...) you will then become a REAL Web Author and WEBMASTER!!!
8. What Is A Web Host? It's a Computer (usually run by a legitimate company) that stores and serves up webpages to web browsers when they request the pages... these Computers are called Web Servers, or just SERVERS...
9. What Is A Text Editor? It's a Program on a Computer that you use to build documents... they can be plain text documents like a Letter or Resume for example or they can also be a Webpage document... a plain text document is usually saved in the format "name.txt" while a Webpage Source Code document MUST be saved in the format "name.html" ...the last part of the filename is called the file extention... ".html" or ".txt" as examples...
10. What Is an FTP Program? FTP (File Transfer Protocol) It's a Program that connects your Computer to any online Web Host and enables you to copy files (documents) back and forth... you can find FTP Programs to Download from the Internet for free... we discuss this in detail in our FTP Tutorial...
11. What Is A Domain or Domain Name? It's a text name that is chosen to locate where on the Internet a Web Page is located... where the Web Host is located... where the Web Server is located... For Example: "www.davmagic.com" is our Domain... when you write a Web Address (URL ...Universal Resource Locator) you can sometime omit the "www" and just write the rest "davmagic.com" ...and when you want to write a URL you can also prefix it with "http://" which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol which is simply a direction to use certain "rules" when fetching the Web Page Document... but be ABSOLUTELY SURE that in any case, you DO NOT have ANY SPACES within the total string of characters or else your Web Browser will give you an ERROR saying it can't find the document!

    Domain names must be PURCHASED and then Registered with a Domain Registrar (usually for 2 years but renewable) and then you need to "Park" your Domain at your Web Host so that it can direct users to your pages...

12. What Is index.html? It's the first Web Page name (filename), that most Web Hosts REQUIRE you to use for your FIRST Web Page... Example: if you goto http://davmagic.com you will arrive at our first page named index.html ... so the actual URL (web address) is: http://davmagic.com/index.html ...NOTE: Filenames are case sensitive, so index.html is NOT the same as Index.html or INDEX.HTML...
13. What Are HTML and CSS? Hypertext Markup Language and Cascading Style Sheets... These are the basic languages you MUST learn to be able to build your own Web Pages, using a Text Editor on your Computer... You can learn them at Our Recommended Design Sites ...it's easy...
14. How Should I Begin To Build My Web Pages? Oh, it's easy... just start with Our First Tutorial and you'll have your first beginning page up in no time...

Have any Questions just...

Continue with this design series...use the "Design 2" link below...

Introduction---Design 2