Information: Kay's Heavenly Web Design

Web Hosting
Which is better, free or paid hosting?

Paid Hosting

With paid hosting you will not have forced ads unless you place them there yourself.

Paid hosting will cost anywhere from $6.00 to $25.00 a month or more depending on how big your site will be. However, you probably will be able to use the least expensive type for a small business or personal site.

If you need a shopping cart you will need paid hosting.

You will have your own personalized domain name and email address.

Christian Web Host hosts our site and hosts other sites shown on our client page. They have an excellent support team and we recommend them highly.

Free Hosting

A free web host will place their own advertising in pop up window or across the top or side of your pages. Examples of free sites are Tripod and Geocities/Yahoo.

Some free hosting sites have programs that help you set up a simple web site for free.

You are limited on the amount of space you can use on their server.

Free hosting may not allow you to make any money off of your web site by selling a product or placing your own ads.

If you are going to pay someone to set up a web site for you then maybe you should make it the best it can be and pay for hosting.

DO's AND DON'T's
After browsing web sites to evaluate their content, layout, and graphics we are able to offer these suggestions:

DO:

	browse other sites with the same type of content as what you want and see what catches your eye. Take notes on what you like and what you don't like.
	think about what colors and the type of graphics you want.
	keep a theme throughout your entire site to let people know they are still on your site and haven't jumped to somebody else's.
	use carefully selected pictures that will entertain your visitors and help them to focus on your subject matter.
	have an area that "humanizes" you if your visitors don't know anything about you. Many people feel better when they know there is a real person behind the scenes and want to read something about you. However, don't put it on the first page. Give them the option of reading about you or not reading about you.
	re-consider if you are planning on using a background graphic that has a left-border (like our samples of band, flowers, and quail). We give you some reasons here.

DON'T:

	put a ton of content all across your page. Make it simple so people can find what they are looking for without having to search up and down lists of stuff.
	have more than one animated graphic in view at any time. They may draw your visitors' eyes away from your message and make it more difficult for them to concentrate. Use animation selectively to enhance your message.
	have light colored text on a dark background unless you are absolutely sure you like the way it looks on other pages. It strains some people's eyes.
	search for your domain name unless you are ready to purchase it. There are unscrupulous companies out there that intercept searches and buy names so they can sell them back to you at higher prices.
	put your picture at the top of the first page unless it is important to the message you want to convey. Most people don't care what you look like. They are interested in what you have to say or sell. Even if you have a famous face then they already know what it looks like.
	put your email address online unless you disguise it some way to keep spam harvesters from putting it on spam lists. (We will do that for you.) (If you want to view some really horribly designed web pages so you can see what NOT to do take a look at: www.webpagesthatsuck.com)

FAQ's

Q: Will I be able to maintain my own web site after you set it up for me?
A: If you have the Microsoft FrontPage program then the answer is definitely, "Yes!" If you don't then there may be some things, such as page counters, that will not be able to be changed by you. You should be able to change text and make simple changes without any problems. We don't make any guarantees, however.

Q: Will I be able to maintain my own shopping cart?
A: Yes! The cart is actually separate from regular web pages and is accessed through your web host. We encourage you to maintain your own cart so you can change your product list or make other changes. You definitely will have to take care of your own orders, shipping, etc. and we will show you how to do that.

Q: What if I mess up my web pages? Will you fix them for me?
A: We will have a backup of all your pages the way they were when we finished with them. We will reinstall all of them in that condition back onto your server for a charge of $35.00.

Q: Can I register my own domain name and get my own web hosting company before you create my web site?
A: Absolutely! We encourage you to do it because it will save you money. We can do it for you, but will charge extra for our time spent. We'll be glad to make suggestions on how you can do it yourself and what kinds of things you will need to have and to know.

Q: I don't have any of my own graphics. Will that be a problem?
A: Don't give it another thought. We will be able to enhance your pages with graphics we create or find.

TERMINOLOGY / DEFINITIONS
Definitions are simplified to enable you to understand what I'm saying.
If you want a complete technical explanation you can [probably find it here or here.

DOMAIN NAME: the special name that takes you to a web site. This domain name is kaysheavenlywebdesign.com.

FAQ's: Frequently asked questions

FAVICON: The little picture that shows up next to the site name on browsers on the navigation tab, in the URL window, or next to the bookmark. It stands for "favorite icon". The favicon for this site looks similar to this:

FORCED ADS: places like Tripod and Yahoo provide free space on their servers in exchange for them putting ads in pop up windows or across the top or alongside your page. Visitors to your site may find them annoying.

META TAGS: the codes that some browsers read to categorize your site. There are meta tags for keywords (when you plug words into a search engine to find a site you are using keywords), meta tags for a description of what your site is all about, and other meta tags for various things.

SERVERS: the big computers that are always online and used by web hosts

SHOPPING CART: a type of online store where you can buy merchandise on the Internet

WEB HOST: a company with a big computer that stays online all the time. They rent out space on their computer to people like you so you can put your web pages on their server.

SCREEN RESOLUTION

Different monitors view web pages in different ways. The older computers could only "see" 640 by 480 pixels at a time. In the year 1996 larger resolution monitors began being produced. Since then there have been lots of different sizes.

Most people will be viewing your pages at a resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels or higher. Not too many people still have the old, smaller, screens. The resolutions on screens can usually be changed by the users. Here's how to see what resolution your screen is using: What is my screen resolution? That page also tells you how to change your resolution.

Your pages will be designed to look good on screens with 1024 x 768 resolution and bigger. The fonts might be a little more difficult to read on bigger because they will look smaller. However, the fonts we use are of a readable size and are larger than many on other people's pages. Plus the computer user will have the option of changing his screen resolution to enlarge his view.

The backgrounds that have a repeating picture down the left hand side (like our samples for flowers, quail, and music) and are nice looking but they present a problem. You need to examine those problems before you make the final decision to go with a left border background. On the old resolutions that are less than 1024 by 768 the text will overlap the border. Sometimes the left border will repeat itself in the middle of the page. However, our left border graphics are made1280 pixels wide so they won't repeat until the screen resolution is higher than that width.

On a background using a left border all the page information needs to be corralled into tables. Those tables need to be aligned to the right to keep them away from the left border. The best thing to do is to make them look the best for the greatest number of viewers.

If you are a business site we recommend you stick with a regular background just to make sure everyone that views your site sees basically the same thing. With a background that has no left border all the information will be centered in the middle and all screen resolutions will show everything centered nicely. We are careful not to use tiny fonts so your pages will be readable in higher resolutions.

LEFT BORDERS

1024x768 Screen Resolution
This is how we want it to look. This resolution is the one most people use on their home computers.

Businesses are the ones who are coming out with a lot of higher resolution screens. That's why we recommend you only use a left-border background for personal pages and not for business pages.

1280x1024 Screen Resolution
When you view in a higher screen resolution, things look smaller. The text seems smaller as does everything else.

Everything is also knocked slightly off center to the right.

800X600 Screen Resolution
Notice how the text and picture of musical notes overlaps the left border. Notice how large the "start" looks in the bottom left corner compared to the pictures above.

Repeating border

1280x1024 Screen Resolution
This is what happens when a background is made specifically for a 1024x768 resolution and is only 1024 pixels wide. The left border of vertical flowers has repeated itself. The left-border backgrounds we make are 1280 pixels wide. They, too, will repeat themselves on any screen resolutions wider than that.

That is why we recommend you only use left borders in personal pages. Most home computers aren't wider than 1280x1024.