Create a simple website for your club, or your latest movie!

Overview - it's simple

Create pages of pictures and text on your computer
Send them to space reserved for you on your Internet Service Provider's computers which are always on and always connected to the net.
Switch off your computer.
Anyone on the Internet will be able to read your pages.

If you have access to the Internet your supplier (AOL, Earthlink, Yahoo, and Microsoft etc) usually gives some free space on their machines where you can put up a web site. If not go to www.free-webhosts.com and seek out some free webspace with as few adverts as possible.
What your ISP (Internet Service Provider) gives you may be known as "freespace" or "home pages" … and you can put whatever you want there in the way of words, pictures, links, sounds etc. so long as they are within the law and do not break copyright. The only catch is that your page must be in HTML format - easy and fun to learn - but for a simple site you can avoid even that technicality (see below). If you don't fancy doing it yourself maybe one or more club members could set up and run your web site, enjoy doing it and become fresh committee fodder!
What You Need: some time; no money!

In most cases web site space is provided free by the company which links you to the net. It does take a little time to prepare the pages of information on your site but the tools to do so need not cost a penny. In fact with a Windows machine you can:

Write a website in Word and "Save As..." HTML document; prepare pictures and logos in Paint and send files from your computer to your ISP's computer using Internet Explorer.
But for more than the simplest websites it is helpful to have a few special tools:

A dedicated web design program - try Kompozer.
An image manipulator - try Irfan View.
A file transfer program - try File Zilla.

We suggest these programs because they are all free ... and can be downloaded from the links above.

What would you say on your site?

Decide who your ideal reader is and write for her/him.
Get all your main info on the first page: venue, usual meeting night and time, subscription costs and an email address to contact. Make links to other pages with details like your programme, list of the committee, map etc. Be friendly rather than formal. Keep the graphics few and small. Some readers may not be familiar with the Internet ... explain if they need to scroll to see the whole page or to click a link. The net is world wide so indicate which country your community is in.
Don't be paranoid, but think before listing anyone's name and address - it is often better to list a name and email address. Set up a special email address just for film society enquiries - get one free from www.hotmail.com or www.yahoo.com. Any publicly visible email address will be found by advertisers who send junk mail (known as "spam") to that address.

Points To Watch

Your free webspace will have an address like http://freespace.virgin.net/jimsmith/FrontPage.htm but you can get a simpler address by buying a domain name and become: www.dallas-moviemakers.com for example. Lots of companies offer this service at a range of prices. (This website uses http://oneandone.com.) These companies often allow you to publish an email address like info@dallas-moviemakers.com and arrange that any mail which is sent to that address is automatically forwarded to one of your own normal mailboxes.
Note that some parts of the Internet are fussy about the case of words: they see Dallas-Moviemakers.com and dallas-moviemakers.com as different addresses.
If you have information which is calendar related (e.g. "Our next show is ...") be sure to update it.

A common way to set out a web page is to create a table and place the text and pictures in separate cells:

A clapperboard with the title 'Whats New'.
DALLAS MOVIEMAKERS MONTHLY MAGAZINE

Click to see:
our programme
useful links
our committee
special events
subscription dues
Canon Camera. The hot tip is that most of the club members plan to move to HD this year.
Whether you want to buy a $100 Aiptek, $1000 Canon or spend even more on a semi-pro camcorder, see what fellow members recommend.
,,,

Setting it out in a table ensures that the text about camcorders is on the same line as the picture of one. You would set the table borders to "none" or "0" before sending it to the web so that they are not normally visible.

Tables are an old-fashioned way to create websites ... but quick and simple!

Promote Your website

When your website is up, make sure people know about it. Add the address to all your leaflets, posters, even membership cards. Ask members to add it to the "signature" lines of their emails so that every message they send spreads the word. Show a slide with the address on screen at every show.

Make sure Internet search engines can find it.

Submit your site's address to your favourite search engines - check their front pages for details of how to do this.
Add META tags with keywords and descriptions to each web page. (Meta Tags? - see here.)

Content

When your site becomes more than a simple "electronic poster" you may want to find materials and pictures to add to it. Most of what you find on the web will be copyright so do not use them without permission. (Remember that anything on the Internet can be seen world-wide.) Some exploring with google will help you find free material you can use.

Going Further

Learn about web pages and have a lot of fun making your site even better. Sizzling HTML Jalfrezi is a comprehensive website with a fun guide to writing web sites.
Keep pictures to the jpg format and keep them small so they download quickly.
When you see a site you like click on the View menu and choose Source. That shows the code for the page and you can see how they did it.
Add lots of useful links to other web sites. That makes your site more interesting and useful. Encourage other people to link to you - the more links there are the easier people will find you.
Always link to us at (www.ampsvideo.com)
Try to exchange links with as many other local clubs and groups as you can.
Websites come and go, so do check your links regularly. There are programs which can do much of the work for you automatically, we like Xenu Link Sleuth which is free.

Nasties

Every computer should be protected by an up-to-date anti-virus program. If you do not have one, get one and keep it up to date. If you do have one make sure it is up-to-date and actually running! A popular free anti-virus program is AVG.

META Tags ... well worth worrying about

We want to keep these notes non-technical but one issue is worth a look. Each web page is a set of instructions to the computer. If you create a page in Word click the View menu and click on "HTML Source" and you can see that code. Near the start of each page will be a section like:

<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="Microsoft Word 97">
<TITLE>Dallas Moviemakers</TITLE>
</HEAD>

You should add two lines:

<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=windows-1252">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="Microsoft Word 97">
<TITLE>Dallas Moviemakers </TITLE>
<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="video vido cine society club film flim fillum movie Dallas Texas">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT=" Dallas Moviemakers - where movie making enthusiasts meet in downtown Dallas. Venue, programme, membership details.">
</HEAD>

The description is what will appear in some Search Engines when they list your site. The keywords are those by which many Search Engines will identify you. In this case if someone searched for "flim" and "Dallas" they would see your website on the list. List every suitable keyword you can think of and include common mistypes too.

Picture Sizes

Make sure any picture you use is the size you want it to appear on screen. You can put a large picture on your website and instruct everyone's browser to show it small ... but it takes a long time to send a large picture so your page will be slow to appear. Often you will need to shrink a picture. In Irfan View use the Image menu and choose Resize/Resample to reduce a picture. Other picture editors have similar options.

Page Design

We could write a book about web page design ... but lots of other people have already done so. Practically speaking: design for a screen size of 800x600 pixels (a pixel is a picture cell on the grid of light which makes up your screen). That is still the commonest size and unlikely to upset anyone. Stick to the safe web colours which any computer can show (look them up in a search engine) and the two type fonts most computers have: Arial and Times New Roman. Keep the words to a minimum. Don't be afraid to use space - less often is more.

- Debbie Slater & Dave Watterson