To potential web publishers:

I think that many of the ideas that have been put forth are excellent. I have a
few general suggestions for any organization contemplating a web site:

1) Register your own domain name with Internic (or the appropriate Internet
'overseers' for whatever country you're in). Internic is at
http://internic.net/   You can set up a domain name yourself, or you can have
an ISP (information service provider) set it up for you.

Having your own domain name allows you to change ISPs at any time and retain
the same URL (address). This means that any existing links to your site will
remain active, even if you switch ISPs. Internic domain name registration costs
100 US dollars (unless they've raised the price recently), which covers you for
the first two years. You will be billed 50 US$ for each additional year after
the two years are up.

2) At first, I'd suggest setting up an account with an ISP and putting your
site on their server. Generally, this involves a small setup charge, plus a
monthly fee. The fee will depend on the kind of account you have. If you want
your own domain name, the ISP will create a "virtual domain" account for you,
and the ISP's name will not appear in your site address (URL). Currently, I'm
paying about 39 dollars per month for a virtual domain account. This includes
about 20MB of online storage space, three e-mail addresses, mail forwarding,
and access to some basic CGI programs (these are server-based programs that
provide extra functionality to web pages, such as counters, form-to-mail
programs, shopping cart programs, etc.). I'm using a local ISP in Salt Lake
City.

Finding a good ISP is important. If you're setting up a typical dial-up
account, make sure that their dial-up phone number is never (or almost never)
busy. You could randomly call their dial-up number a few times to check, or
better still, ask some people who use the service. Some ISPs will tell you what
their user-to-modem or user-to-phone-line  ratio is (the fewer users per modem,
the better). Read the fine print in the service contract (if they have a
service contract). Find out what kind of 56K modem standard(s) they use; the
V.90 standard is becoming the norm for downloading. Make sure you are using a
compatible modem. Also (very important), make sure that the ISP doesn't limit
e-mail attachment size.

Later, if you want to expand your site (and if traffic levels to the site
warrant it), you might consider setting up your own web server. This would
require a dedicated line to an Internet service provider and a machine that
will always be online. You will still need an account with an ISP, since it is
highly unlikely that you will ever have a direct connection to the Internet
trunk lines (even most smaller ISPs go through larger ISPs). Dedicated lines
vary in price, depending on the amount of bandwidth (carrying capacity) you're
tying up. A nice thing about having your own server is that you don't have to
get permission to use specific CGI/server-side programs, you have as much
storage space as you want/need, it is a bit easier and faster to make website
changes, etc. However, you have to remember that having your own server does
open up a few security issues, which must be dealt with.

3) Start out with a simple site that you can manage by yourself. Don't add too
many whistles and bells until you've established a basic, useful site. There
are a lot of HTML editors that make it very easy to build basic pages without
much knowledge about HTML (hypertext markup language).

4) Here are a few rules of thumb for a budding web publisher:

Prioritize the kinds of information that you want on the web site. This is
really important. At first, just include the high-level information. As you
develop the site, add more details, images, interactivity, forms, pages, etc.
etc.

Don't make visitors wade through all of the low-level details every time they
visit your site. Set information up in a simple hierarchy with logical links.

Don't make visitors wait a long time for a bunch of large images to download
every time they visit the site. Use smaller images with hot links to larger
images. If you use animation, avoid large or poorly compressed animation files
that take a long time to download.

Make sure all text is highly legible and use a very clean layout. Avoid
distracting backgrounds.

Don't be afraid to break these or other rules (when appropriate).

5) Don't be intimidated by web publishing. Get a good book on it and try it
yourself (professional web developers can be very pricey).

6) Finally, have fun. If you're enjoying it, you'll do a good job.

Note: Although I've produced a number of sites and set up several web servers,
I really DON'T have the time to produce any web sites for anybody right now,
but I'd be happy to try to answer a question or two.

Alan Bowes
[log in to unmask]