How to make the most out of
my homesite
Eygló Björnsdóttir
Different programs for making websites
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Front Page
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(from Microsoft – not included in the 2007
package)
Dreamweaver
Even Word and Publisher (from Microsoft)
Note Tab Light
All kind of programs available from Netservices (that’s what we use in Iceland –
http://dkg.muna.is)
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Free Websites
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The Google service (http://sites.google.com/site/eyglob)
All kind of blogsites
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(Wordpress.com is what I like best )
All kind of Wiki-sites
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(wikispaces.com; wetpaint.com) (to get rid of advertisment
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you have to pay for them)
http://eyglob.wikispaces.com
http://utn0153.wetpaint.com
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Some points to have in mind to help you
design a good looking and useful website
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The “magic” behind a website 
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I have had this question:
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Do different fonts require more bytes than others?
Does the use of color affect the cost?
This is an example of code in a HTML-file:
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<font face="Arial" color="#FF0000" size="2">
This is a text</font>
<img border="0" src=“mountain.jpg" width="118"
height="120">
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What fonts to use?
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Always use fonts that is most likely all people
have in their computers
The best fonts to use on websites are so
called Sans-Serif fonts (Verdana, Arial,
Helvetica).
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Times New Roman, Palation, New York and other
Serif fonts are good fonts for printing but not on
screen.
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Fonts
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On this webpage you can see the difference between
using Times New Roman and Verdana.
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Fonts
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Be sure that all the text on the website has
the same font... Mixing fonts on the same site
is not good looking
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Color
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Like I said before, you can use all kind of
color on the text of your website and colored
text doesn’t use more bytes than black .
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But the rule is to use font color with care....
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It is good to use color to place emphasis on
something, but mixing many colors on the same
page doesn’t look good.
Eygló Björnsdóttir
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Line Length
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Readability is best when each line contains 8 to 15
words
The best way to control this on webpages is to use
tables. Table with the width of 500-550 pixels is a good
one to use.
Here you can see a webpage where the lenght of the
lines is not controlled
Here is the same page but here the line lenght is
controlled.
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Paragraph Length
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Limit your paragraphs to 1-3 sentences.
This style is commonly used by journalists
in newspapers around the world.
Be as brief as possible. Say what you
mean, mean what you say. This will limit the
length of the your paragraphs and
document.
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Underlining
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There is an easy rule when using underlining
in web pages. Don't.
How do you get around underlining?
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Use italics or bold.
Book titles should be italized.
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Tables
Using tables allows you to
utilize that space that
would otherwise be
wasted. It would be a
good idea to adjust the
padding to keep your text
off the edge of the table.
On this table you see the
border.
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Tables
Ordinarily you'd set the
border to 0, thus making
the table invisible.
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Tables
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It is also good to use tables when you want to write
picture text below the pictures
Crater Lake in Oregon
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This is also Crater Lake in
Oregon
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Pasting from other programs
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Either use Notepad (or similar plain text
program) or use the “Paste Special” option in
the webprogram
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Images:
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Images, especially photos from digital cameras,
are very big in size. You have to make them
smaller before you use them on your site
Notice: It is not enough to define the size in the
program you use to make the site, you actually
have to make the image file smaller.
You can either use the webmaking program to
do that, a graphic program or some free services
on the Internet
Here is a page with a small picture
Here is a page with a big picture
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More about images
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Here are two services that are good to use to work
with images:
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And if you just need to get them smaller you can use
this one:
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http://pixenate.com/
http://www.picnik.com/
http://www.picresize.com/
To make many images smaller at the same time you
can use the Easy Thumbnail programme
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http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/
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Working with images
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When you place an image into a document and align it
left or right, any text you have will simply hug itself
around the image. This can be easily accomplished by
changing what is called the VSPACE and HSPACE of an
image.
Without VSPACE and
HSPACE
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Eygló Björnsdóttir
With VSPACE=10 and
HSPACE=10
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The Alt tag
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Remember to use the “Alt” tag when you
insert an image your file:
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The "alt" attribute tells the reader what he or she
is missing on a page if the browser can't load
images. The browser will then display the
alternate text instead of the image. It is a good
practice to include the "alt" attribute for each
image on a page, to improve the display and
usefulness of your document for people who have
text-only browsers.
See on this page
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More about Pictures
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Images can only be rectangular in size,
transparency is a way to get around this limitation
When using GIFs you can make a single color value
become transparent (you can not do that on photos
from cameras).
F.eks: To get rid of the blue color around the light
bulb, you make the blue color transparent.
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This only works with GIFs with backgrounds that are a
single color value
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Other files than HTML-files
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You can upload all kind of files to your server and
link to them from your homepage, but you should do
that with care. Making PDF files is probably the best
thing to do.
All files you use and show on you homepage have
to be on your server, unless of course you are
linking to files that others have on their server
You can use some free services like Google for
keeping some files and link to them from there.
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Interactive files
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Some programs like f.eks FrontPage and
Dreamweaver let you make all kind of
interactive files to use on your website
You can also make interactive forms on
Google and link to them from your website.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=
en&formkey=dHlMRkFQM1VoU0I3S2o1ajhfa
zNDNkE6MA..
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What content should be on a state website?
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The Society Purposes and Mission Statement(required)
Informations about administration and boards
Links to all the chapters websites if there are any
News from the state work and also news from all the
chapters if they don’t have independent websites
Informations about the society funds available
Publications (both local and International)
News ...on the Frontpage (first page)
Members list (password protected)
Photos (if agreed)
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more:
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Links to all kind of informations on the DKG Society
International site
Links to other state sites (e.g here in Europe)
Calendar where you can mark important dates?
More??
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Who provides the informations that goes on
the website?
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The state president and the administration
board
All our boards also can send the webmaster
all kind of informations
The webmaster himself (reading and picking
up information from other state homesites
and The DKG Society International site
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How do you keep a website updated?
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Simply by viewing the website at least once a
month or so and try to think of something to put
in there... 
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...if I get no idea... I go to the The DKG Society
International site and try to find some interesting
things there to put on our site...and it is
important always to mention what is new on the
site in the News section so that visitors can see
that the site is alive.
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How do you handle personal informations
on the website?
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Always when we have some kind of meeting we ask for
permission to put photos on the web. In the future we will
let the women tick to the statement that posting photos
are allowed when they are registering for any activities
on behalf of DKG.
We are working on having each chapter make a file
where every woman sign that posting photos, names,
email adress, phone number ect. is allowed.
Next winter we will have our members list on a closed
webpage where you need password to get inside
Yfirlýsing (statement)
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Java scripts
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(http://vefir.unak.is/beta/felagatal_beta.html)
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http://www.javascriptkit.com/epassword/index
.htm
more to use:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cut34.shtml
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