Thought maybe I'd close this partay out by giving some tips on Apple's iWeb program to those of you who are planning to start a news website (or any website for that manner). I know some of you already have web skills, but this is intended for those who don't.
iWeb is really cool because it is pretty much the only true WYSIWYG web-production program that is very intuitive. If you know how to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Publisher, or Adobe InDesign, then it's pretty easy to use iWeb to make websites.
By the way, WYSIWYG is computer lingo (pronounced "wizzy-wig") that stands for "What You See Is What You Get."
I recommend iWeb to all students I see at Annenberg who want to create a website and have no clue how to do HTML or Dreamweaver because the program is so easy. Even Dreamweaver is a pain to use if you're not a web expert. In case you didn't know, you automatically own iWeb if you're own a Mac user and if you bought it in 2006 or later.
Although I could have used a lot more sophisticated means to produce my web-based paper for a class (boy I sound pompous), I decided to do it in iWeb so I could educate myself about it as much as possible and really know what I'm talking about when I help students use it in the Annenberg Digital Lab. I've played with the program a lot before, but I wanted to actually create something for myself to see what roadblocks I'd hit, and then would know how to help students get around them.
It also allowed me to legitimately work on my paper at work because I was techinically doing software research. I love killing multiple birds with one stone. :)
So I got the stupid thing done on time, but I didn't bother to test it on multiple browsers because I was so eager to begin my weekend with my girlfriend. Unfortunately when we stopped by the Apple Store in Walnut Creek, I tested my online paper website on the computers there.
My paper looked F*&@D UP.
All the embedded YouTube videos, QuickTime movies, audio clips, and Comedy Central video clip players appeared ok, but they were misaligned and overlapping on top of the text. Goddammit.
I just finished fixing all the problems this morning before work. Yeah, it took me that long and I'm praying to the good Lord above that our esteemed professors David and Geoff don't consider my paper late because of this. Thankfully, now I know how to avoid this....
When creating a website in iWeb, be sure to do the following...
1. Don't cram too much stuff onto one page. I made the mistake of pasting my entire written paper onto one webpage and peppering the videos and stuff throughout. This is just too much crap for the a computer to handle when loading the page on the internet and probably causes problems when parsing all the YouTube videos and stuff into the page. It worked better for me to chunk up the paper into four separate webpages.
2. Break up your text boxes. In the case of my online paper, I originally had all the text in one giant text field and this apparently caused the layout of the page to goof up (hence all the videos and stuff appearing in the wrong place). My solution was to stop a text field where a video was supposed to appear and then begin a new text field to continue the written paper after the video.
3. Don't do the cool "reflection" effect on your images. I know, that template in iWeb with pictures that have the reflection on the bottom looks really cool, but that effect only works on the internet if you view the page on a Mac with the Safari web browser. So you're alienating all the PC users out there because when you look at the page in any other browser you get an ugly blank area where the reflection is supposed to be.
The funny thing is that a student that I recommended iWeb to didn't encounter these issues. She was creating a website for the Trojan Dance Force and she apparently managed to use the program more effectively than me (and I'm supposedly a web guy). Well sheeee-at.
Oh and BTW - it might be important that I was using iWeb '08 and they just released iWeb '09.
Good luck out there and it's been a pleasure.
Late.
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