X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: f996b,f07a7d1c3be53adf X-Google-Attributes: gidf996b,public From: iltzu@sci.fi (Ilmari Karonen) Subject: Re: Join our nationwide web design service. Date: 1997/12/30 Message-ID: <68bgk9$btq@tron.sci.fi>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 311591927 References: <34A93358.691EA2E2@cityUSA.net> Distribution: inet Organization: (dis)Order of the Holy Spoon (or whatever) Newsgroups: alt.ascii-art George Duggan (Webgeo@cityUSA.net) wrote: : We are expanding a chain of website malls around North America : & we are looking for regional representatives to do simple website : designs for small businesses. You work directly from your home : and you choose the hours that you work. If you would like to : make an extra $100, or $200 per week in your spare time, this : is an excellent way to do it. It doesn't matter where you live : in North America. Well, I don't know what to say. This isn't spam, even though clearly off-topic. Nor is it really a scam, but certainly not competent business either. What they're doing is conceptually a good idea, but they're doing it in a rather half-assed manner. Well, I'll reply in the same manner. Your post was half-way between spam and a reasonable offer. This reply will be half-way between a flame and reasonable advice. =) : For information, go to http://www.cityusa.net/sos/ TODAY because : we are looking for quality people immediately. There is no cost : to you and no experience is necessary. Ok, I went to the page you mention. It isn't actually broken (well except for a few missing quotes) but it certainly isn't good, or even barely competent, web design. It is true that no previous experience is really needed to make simple web pages, even manually. In fact, for simple pages like the one mentioned above, it takes less effort to type the tags than to play with a WYSIAYG [1] HTML editor. Not to mention that you get real, valid web pages instead of Netscape tag soup. But did he do that? Of course not. As for the OpenUp pages themselves, I don't know how they were done, but they're even worse. If you can't do better than he did, you shouldn't do web pages at all. If you can, you shouldn't work for someone who can't and/or won't. : Simple Online Solutions : 431 Old Best Road : West Sand Lake, NY 12196 Simple? You certainly didn't solve the problem of putting up a text only page very simply, did you? Simple would've been to type just a few simple tags with notepad, and then to learn some more HTML. Like this: Minimal HTML2.0 document

Simple Web page

This is how easy it is to create a simple HTML document. No backgrounds, no tables, no other fancy tricks, but quite adequate for a page like the one above.

Just put a title in the top, and then the document itself. Use H1 for the top heading, then P for each paragraph. For P, the closing tag </P> isn't necessary. Oh, and if you want to use the less-than and greater-than signs in text, use < and >. For an ampersand, use &. Don't forget the semicolon!

Other things to add

You can even use sub-headings, all the way down to H6. (or was that H7, no-one ever seems to use the smallest ones) They even look much better than faking headings with font changes.

Or maybe some images. They're easy, as long as you don't try any layout tricks. Just include them in text. It's easy! Don't forget the alternative text. For plain decorations, use ALT="".

For stand-alone images, just put them in a paragraph of their own. You can do all sorts of layout, but it's a bit harder. Check the Web Design Group's pages for details. Incidentally, that's how you do links.

Ascii art in HTML

And, since this is a.a-a, I'll have to show how to do preformatted text: 

 |   o |   _   _|_ |   o  _  |
 |   | |/ /_)   |  |-. | (_  |
 |__ | |\ \_,   |  | | | __) o
There. That's it. Have fun! -- . _, .. j u s t. h o w l.i n g i n .t h e n.i g h t .. ._, . , )'' . /\_ . ' ,/\ . , ``( , _\__/ |__.'\._______,--;_'_`-.___,.______,/_,_`.__,-.__'__,/`-._,_| \____ ,_f_)\. Ilmari Karonen iltzu@sci.fi http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/ /(_|_,.