Mouse not Found

MOUSE NOT FOUND! . . .
Issue 5

Hello, and welcome again to Mouse Not Found. This is the fifth article in this series, but fear not, you can read previous editions online by visiting the Vantasia page on our website at http://www.vantasia.org/vantasia.html then browsing the contents of previous magazine issues. Remember though that things don’t stay still too long on the Internet, so some of the useful links in those articles may now be invalid.

This raises an important point for those of you with websites. Visitors are very intolerant, and such things as invalid links, out of date information, or long load times will very quickly encourage them to look elsewhere, and never return. Make your site interesting, keep it up to date, but don’t bore your visitors with long articles or poor quality pictures. Keep it neat, concise, eye-catching, and easy to navigate.

On the subject of website updating, have you visited our club site at http://www.vantasia.org recently? If so, you might have noticed that the navigation bar has been upgraded to a more powerful and flexible one, which will be able to handle all our needs as the website continues to grow. Perhaps more interesting is the new Games Parlour at http://www.vantasia.org/games.html. Here you’ll find a selection of puzzles and brain-teasers to idle away a few spare minutes! There’s an online crossword too so you can test your knowledge of all things cat-related, and this will be updated from time to time with new clues!

That’s enough about our website, but what about yours?

Many of you will be reading this because you have access to the Internet, and many of you will also have an allocation of web space granted to you as part of your service. Well, maybe now is the time to make use of that allocation and create your own website, even if only to show off your pets to friends and family, it’s really not as hard as you may think!

So where do you start? Perhaps the first thing to do is find out if you really do have some web space allocated to you. When you signed up with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) you would probably have received an email telling you what services are available to you, and its probably here that you’ll see web space mentioned. If not, then maybe you can email your ISP to find out. Failing that, there are free web site services available with content providers like Yahoo, take a look at http://geocities.yahoo.com for an example.

The next thing you’ll need is a web page design program, and the chances are that you already have one installed on your computer! If you have Netscape Communicator installed then you can use the Netscape Composer application, and for users of Microsoft Internet Explorer there is an application called Frontpage Express provided. Chances are that you have one or both of these already, but if not then they can be downloaded from Netscape or Microsoft free of charge.

More serious web designers may want to part with some cash and opt for Frontpage 2002, or one of several other commercial packages available. Frontpage is a good intuitive program for beginners and experts alike, and allows you to design graphically (WYSIWYG) or at the HTML text level. Oh incidentally, HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and is the language that nearly all web pages are written in. Look at http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/basics.html for more details.

There are many resources on the Internet that can help you learn how to design web pages. Frontpage Express users can visit http://www.hypergurl.com/fpebackground.html for a free tutorial, whilst Netscape users can look at http://home.netscape.com/browsers/using/newusers/composer. Additionally, more tutorials, hints, and resources can be found at http://www.fluffbucket.com, but there are many other useful site out there which you can find by using a search engine (which we discussed in a previous edition of Mouse Not Found).

Before starting to create your web page it’s worth spending a short time thinking about your preferred layout. You’ll want a prominent title at the top of the page, some introductory text and maybe a picture or two beneath, and perhaps some links to other pages or related sites. Every web site has its own individuality so don’t worry to much about being conformant, but don’t try to be too clever, you can always tidy up or improve your site as you become more proficient.

One thing to be careful of is the time it will take for visitors to load your web page. Most of them will be using a standard modem to connect to the Internet, so a 50 kilobyte (50K or 50Kb) picture will take about 10 seconds to download. Put half a dozen pictures on one page and your visitors will have to wait a whole minute for the page to fully download, during which time they may decide to go elsewhere. The rules on picture sizes and formats for emailing that I discussed in my previous edition of Mouse Not Found apply equally well to web pages.

The main page for your website (also known as the home page) should be saved as a file named index.html, or sometimes just index.htm (your ISP should tell you this). This is the file name that web browsers always look for if no other is specified, and so is a good choice for your home page. You don’t have to be connected to the Internet while designing your web page, but once complete, you’ll need to upload it to your ISP. This is where all ISPs differ, however they should all provide instructions on how to do this, so check out the information they gave you when you signed up, or look on their website. Usually a protocol called FTP (file transfer protocol) is used, and you’ll probably need to upload and install some software in order to use this. You’ll also need to know the web address of your site and the username & password that were assigned to you.

If all goes well you should now be able to type the address of your site in your browser, and load up your very own web page!

I’ll finish now by mentioning a few links that you might like to visit online:

Shaws are well known for their cages and carriers, but they also supply a large range of other pet care products. You can view their products and buy online at http://www.shawspet.co.uk.

Buying worming tablets from your vet can be an expensive business, especially if you have several pets. Visit Beeston Animal Health at http://www.wormers.co.uk to buy wormers online at discounted prices.

FelineOnline is a new UK website for cat lovers, and contains an assortment of information and interesting articles. Its home page can be found at http://www.felineonline.com.

The GCCF website is located at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/GCCF_CATS/ and is worth looking at if you breed or show cats. Recent updates include the provision of a downloadable Mating Certificate example, which breeders are now required to provide along with new kitten registrations (unless they also own the stud).

Well that completes another edition of Mouse Not Found! So until next time, happy surfing!

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