Tools
I use most of these tools almost every day. This list used to be much longer, but now Dreamweaver can do just about everything I used to use other applications to do.
Major Applications
- Dreamweaver (Web authoring and site management; good CSS support; does not destroy your code): Sometime in the late spring of 2001, I crossed over. Up until then, I had hand-coded just about everything. Then I started using Dreamweaver UltraDev, and all that changed. I had tried other editor programs, including Dreamweaver 3, but nothing else ever worked so well or did so much. Note that in most newspaper newsrooms, online producers use a proprietary content management system (CMS) and not a commercial application such as Dreamweaver.
- Photoshop (image editor): This is the one program to know, for all professionals in Web design. Insanely expensive, true -- but it rocks like nothing else for Web images. Artists use either Illustrator or Freehand (as well as Photoshop), but non-artists will not need any other image application. Adobe also makes a reasonably priced Web graphics program called Photoshop Elements (Win or Mac). It doesn't do all the things that Photoshop does, but it might be enough for a beginner.
- Flash (animation, interfaces, full interactive packages): The awesome power of this application for building applications -- especially database-driven applications -- is often overwhelmed by the excess of stupid animations to which amateur Web geeks and advertisers have subjected us. But every cool interactive story at The New York Times, MSNBC.com, etc., is done in Flash. I wrote a book titled Flash Journalism: How to Create Multimedia News Packages (Focal Press, 2005). There is a Web site for the book.
Audio and Video
These are on separate pages:
- Audio
Tools, tutorials and advice for online journalists who want to gather and edit audio. - Video for the Web (coming soon)
- Plug-ins
Overview of the most-used players and file formats for audio and video, as well as PDF and RSS.
Domain Names and Hosting
Web site hosting: I use Dreamhost. They have great packages that include lots of e-mail accounts and MySQL databases. You will pay a monthly fee for as long as the account is active, plus a one-time setup fee. If you pay for one year in advance, they will waive the setup fee.
Domain name registration: I use GoDaddy. They have a funny name, but they have been reliable and trustworthy for the several years I have been using them. And they are cheap! I own six domain names. One of them is still registered at Network Solutions, but the other five are at GoDaddy.
Note that if you do not own a domain name already, you can sign up for a domain name and hosting all at once for one combined fee. Some people, however, buy a domain name alone to "park" it. For example, if your best friend has a new baby, you could buy the baby's name (plus .com or .net, for example) and give it to your friend as a gift. Your friend wouldn't need hosting unless he or she was really going to put up Web pages at that domain.
Students at the University of Florida have free hosting at Plaza (see instructions). You do NOT get a domain name, though! Look at the URL for this Web site. My Gatorlink user name is mmcadams. Your Plaza URL will look like mine (with your user name in place of mine, of course).
Minor Applications
- FreeZip (uncompresses downloaded files): Excellent, easy, with no annoying dialog boxes -- and completely free! The more widely used WinZip is not really free and pops up some annoying dialog boxes. (This works only on PCs, not Macs.)
- Crimson Editor (text editor): I use this freeware program for writing JavaScript and plain text files. It has many, many more features than Windows Notepad.
- SnagIt! (screen-capture program): You can capture screens manually, of course, but this shareware application's features make it easier if you are grabbing a lot of screen images, e.g., for class handouts. I became a registered user in 2003, and it's been great.
Browsers
Firefox: I used Mozilla as my primary browser until Firefox 1.0 was released. Before that, I was a Netscape user. I test everything in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), but otherwise, I never use IE unless some stupid Web site forces me to. In most cases, I will not use a site that doesn't work in Firefox. It's simply a better browser. More than 100 million people have downloaded Firefox. Have you?
Firefox extensions: These can be very useful when you are designing Web sites. There are many extensions, but these three have been especially handy (thanks, Craig!):
- ColorZilla: Use an eyedropper tool to grab the color code from anything on any Web page. When you right-click the eyedropper in the browser status bar, you get a great menu that lets you zoom in on the page, open a color picker, and much more.
- MeasureIt: Click and drag to get the width and height of anything on any Web page.
- Web Developer: Adds a toolbar to the browser that allows you to easily view a page's CSS, disable CSS, disable images, and many, many other things.
Trends in browser use, screen resolution and color depth: You need to know what people are currently using to view your Web pages. Browser News has very good summaries.
Size test: Keep in mind that the appearance of a Web page is dependent on the Web browser. Your Web browser window may be wide and tall, but mine may be narrow and short -- because each one of us gets to choose. To test the design of a page, I open this image and then resize the browser. (Does your page design fall apart if you make the browser window narrow?) Nowadays I usually design for a screen resolution of 1024 x 768, but I still check to see whether the design will be usable at 800 x 600.