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How does a website get on the internet?

There are three things you need in order to have a site on the internet:

1. Domain name
2. Web host
3. Fully designed set of pages

There are thousands upon thousands of web hosts out there. (It's possible but annoying, expensive and troublesome to serve as your own web host.) These companies have servers that are connected to the internet. Servers are large storage computers that can hold a ton of information. If you want to look at CNN's page, you type www.cnn.com into my web browser. A message is sent via your DSL account to a computer - which could be located anywhere - that holds CNN's web page. It's called pinging. You ping their web page, or more accurately, their server, and the CNN front page loads onto your computer screen.

Since you don't want computers around the world to be pinging your own computer, it's best to park your web site on some other web host. If that server goes down, you still have my web page files on available at Blackwood Design or on your own computer. When the host fixes the server, or buys another one, your page can always be recreated.

So, to get started, with the assistance of Blackwood Design, you select a web host, sign up for account, pay a monthly fee (credit card), and register a domain name. Then Blackwood Design will upload your web site directly onto the web host's server.

Voila!

Why design?

Because it's fun. Why not have something beautiful if that's an option? The internet is highly functional, and there's no reason it should not be beautiful as well.

What do all those acronyms stand for?

URL, HTML, JPEG, ASCII...? Go here and find out.

What's the difference between print-ready and web-ready pictures and graphics?

Short answer: The resolution.

Long answer: The computer monitor doesn't have a very high resolution. The web standard is 72 dpi (dots per inch). A photo or a graphic image with the resolution of 72 dpi looks gorgeous on the computer. But if you print it out it will look fuzzy and/or pixelated. That's because the standard for printers is 300 dpi.

The reason that we use 72 dpi for the web is that every image file takes up a certain amount of file space. The higher the resolution, the bigger the image file is. The bigger the file, the slower the download over the internet. Hence, low-resolution for the internet, high-resolution for printing.

info @ BlackwoodDesign.com    |    319 331-0494    |    © 2008