Help for Church Webmasters

 

We currently have a wide variety of subscribers to this newsletter, from beginners to very advanced. Obviously not everyone will find every item of interest. I will be trying to provide something for all levels of proficiency. So hopefully if there is nothing in one issue that you find of value, there will be in something in the next one.

 

If you have a topic of that you would like to see covered or you have some tips to pass on, please let me know.

 

 

More on Flash

In the last issue I mentioned that it is not a good idea to use flash intro pages or flash navigation schemes. I said that if you want to do something with flash, do something cool or something evangelistic. Let’s face it, how many times to I really want to sit through your intro page? And is a spinning logo and some text really all that cool? (I don’t think so…)

 

Several people asked what I meant by doing something cool. Here is one idea of what I was talking about…  
(I have ZERO artistic abilities; so if you do something like this, let me know so I can put it on my site too!)

 

WorldNetDaily, in a recent article by Julie Foster, relates the popularity of two Christian Web sites, "Interview with Jesus" and "Interview with God." Scott Kinney, creator of "Interview with Jesus," uses flash technology to present a 4-minute movie in which an interviewer asks Jesus for advice He would give God's children, using Bible verses in response.

Nature photography and soft guitar music form a visual/audio background for this unique site. Scott, an e-card developer, created the movie after viewing "Interview with God," by graphic artist Reata Strickland, a movie dealing with life lessons taught by God, now with over 10 million hits. Reata says, "This site was created with hopes that viewers will be encouraged by the words and the love of the Living God. His words can speak to a deep place within you and they can bring life."  A gift book, "Interview with God," will soon be available. WorldNetDaily reports, "Both Flash artists have been amazed at the power of the Internet as evidenced by the swiftness with which their videos have grown in popularity." View these creative presentations at the Web sites below.

Full story (WorldNetDaily):

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23997

Interview with God: http://www.momentswithgod.com/interview.html

Interview with Jesus: http://www.interviewwithgod.com/

 

 

 

 

HTML Help

Here are some resources to help you with your HTML.

 

Oh, you think you are using the latest and greatest WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor and you don’t need to know HTML. Nothing could be further from the truth.

 

Unfortunately some of the tools generate less than pristine HTML. And sometimes you won’t be able to get the graphical editor to do exactly what you need to do. In both of these cases (and several others), you will need to hand edit the HTML. That’s going to be kind of difficult if you don’t know HTML. Fortunately, HTML is very simple and easy to learn. Furthermore, with these resources bookmarked, you can call up the pages and get help at any time.

 

Note that many of these sites cover the same material. But I have included them anyway. We all learn a little differently, so what one might find as incomprehensible another will find very helpful.

 

Useful HTML Tags - http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-7530-8-5031280-1.html?tag=st.bl.3880.ref_l.7530-8-5031280-1

HTML for Beginners - http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/0-3881-8-5893399-1.html?tag=st.bl.7250.pro_h3881-8-5893399-1

Beginning HTML - http://html.about.com/library/beginning/bl_begin.htm

The Bare Bones Guide to HTML - http://werbach.com/barebones/download.html

HTML Quick Reference - http://www.cc.ukans.edu/~acs/docs/other/HTML_quick.shtml

 

Lots of cool HTML references - http://www.projectcool.com/developer/

 

HTML Home Page (by WC3 – the folks that control the HTML standard) - http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/

 

 

Quotable Quote

 

“Building a website is easy. Building a good website is more difficult. Building a good website that people use on an ongoing basis is a commitment.”  —June Dudley