Frequently Asked Questions

So if you want to get a web site on line, where should you start?  If you intend to maintain the site yourself, and have little interest in mastering XHTML and style sheets, a good alternative is Content Management Systems. CMS uses software mounted on a website so that end users can maintain their own information, using just a web browser.

One of the best is WordPress. It has been five years since the first version of WordPress appeared. WordPress is an open source blogging platform that has grown into the most powerful blog system - used by thousands of blogs and sites. WordPress has many built-in features and it is extremely customizable through the different themes and plug-ins available.

WordPress is now evolving into a Content Management Systems (CMS) of choice for many sites. Given that it is highly configurable, designers and developers are continuously tweaking WordPress themes and plugins in order to replace traditional CMS.

Since WordPress is “Open Source”, it is available without charge. Since it is free, it is often not perfect. Folks work with WordPress on three levels:

1. As users, they can upload and update their own information
2. As administrators, they help register users and keep the site tidy.
3. As developers, they can set up the sites, control look and feel, and add tools that benefit users.

Downsides to using WordPress

WordPress pages exist within a database on the server. This has three drawbacks:

1. It can take a moment for the server to assemble your WordPress page. Users will experience a hesitation when downloading your content.

2. Database information takes some care when backing up content. If you are not rigorous, you could lose your website if the web host suffered a major crash and was unable to restore content.

3. Since the pages are assembled by the server, Web Bots like Google may not see them. For this reason, we use Permalinks to create a structure that the Bots can see. More about Permalinks later.

Will this work on my PC/Mac/Cray/Amiga?

Since WordPress runs on a server on the internet, it is independent of your computer’s operating system. Files from WordPress can be viewed on any browser.

Administering WordPress is dependent on your browser, however. The best browser for serious web work is Firefox. Firefox has been adopted and adapted by web developers and has some first class tools not available for other browsers. It’s free, and available for ALL computers (PC/Mac/Linux). Get Firefox here:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Use Firefox. If you do not use Firefox for administering your WordPress web site, you will have problems.

What other software should I have on my computer?

You’ll need to manage images. This includes fixing colors, cropping, adjusting distortions, and sizing for web. You’ve got several choices here:

1. PhotoShop elements is available from Costco for about $100 (less on sale); it is widely used and powerful. You can buy older versions of the software for about $30 on eBay. For years, I would automatically recommend PhotoShop Elements because of its widespread use. Recently, one friend complained that the learning curve was really tough. I bought a copy of Elements 6, and found it to be full of bugs - the complete electronic manual did not even ship with the product!! I no longer automatically recommend Elements.

2. I’m currently evaluating Paint Shop Pro X2. The package appears powerful and easy to use. It is very reasonably priced. I’ll post more here. If you have questions, I’ve got all of these image packages running on Bart in our media room; give me a call, drop by.

3. Picasa2 is available free from Google for PC and Linux users. Even if you have PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro, I suggest you download Picasa; it’s an excellent image manager, and has a batch resize capability for sending images to the web that is much faster than PhotoShop.

Picasa has two components: the image organizer that sits on your computer, and free (1GB) web space that Google provides for all users (including Mac users). If you use the web albums to bring images into your WordPress site, your life will be much easier, and your website will look better.

Picasa is blindingly fast and easy to use. It has only simple tools for cropping, tilting, and adjusting color and contrast. These may be all you need. However, if you photograph flat art and need to correct for perspective distortion, you’ll need The Gimp, PhotoShop or Paint Shop Pro for those corrections.

Get Picasa2 here:
http://picasa.google.com/download/

Picasa is not yet available for Mac, but a plugin is available for iPhoto that allows Mac users to easily upload their images to their Google/Picasa web albums.

Read more about WordPress and Picasa on the following pages.

4. The Gimp (for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is open source (and therefore free), very powerful, and available for PC, Linux, and Mac computers. Its interface is a little quirky, and it works best as a companion to a tool like Picasa since it lacks image organization tools.