Milt Reynolds: Thinking Out Loud

How to Find, Download, and Credit Images that are Free and Legal I manage several internet blogs and I try to post at least one new article weekly. When I'm feeling inspired I can write several and schedule them for automatic posting. Thus, I am often looking for free, and legal, images to add to my articles. This instructable will show you my method of finding appropriate images, preparing them for uploading, and most importantly, how to give credit to whom credit is due. Language? All of my instructions and examples are based on using a computer with Windows XP as the operating system, Google Chrome as the internet browser, and several specific software programs. I'll give a link to each program as I describe the steps, HOWEVER... all the instructions can apply to any other operating system and browser , as well as many other software programs. Translate all my terms and examples into whatever language/system/platform/program is best for you! Step 1: Write your ar...

The Start of a New Website, Part 4 Here's how the coding has turned out so far. From this... ...to this: And, from this... ...to this: One other version that I developed: This version is almost identical to one of their brochures. It demonstrates how a design meant for printing on paper can be translated into a webpage. I scanned the images, resized and added text. Each image is an active link to a different section of the website . I posted the different version to the client's website, using a private URL address, so that the organization can see them on the web , but they are not yet available to the public. I hope to find out in a couple of weeks which versions most appeal to the client, and then I can start adding content! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License .

The Start of a New Website, Part 3 Time to write code! I prefer to write my own HTML and CSS code from scratch. I've tried using online generators. I've tried using MS Word and OpenOffice to convert to webpages. They work, and they work fast, but they've all got two serious drawbacks . First, any conversion software takes control away from the designer. Everything I type or enter must be converted into an HTML equivalent, and many, many times, the equivalent is not what I was expecting. Image positioning especially is difficult to generate. Using the online editors available for Wordpress or Blogger seems very confusing if I try to slightly change the positions or sizes. I've rarely been pleased by the results . Second, if I do want to tweak the code after a program has converted or generated a webpage, the HTML coding is incredibly confusing and complicated. Line breaks and division tags are used indiscriminately. Every instance of deleting something in the o...

The Start of a New Website, Part 2 A good way to start thinking about the design of a new website is to challenge your mind to open up, consider colors, big ideas, and potential themes . I wrote about this in The Start of a New Website, Part 1 . Here's some examples of the process. I met with my clients and they showed me printouts of websites, screenshots, and brochures. The discussion allowed me to choose some examples that seemed to be close to what they were envisioning . I took all the samples home, reviewed them briefly, and then put them to one side. Grabbing my granddaughter's crayons and some manila drawing paper, I sketched out a design . This design roughly followed that of a related website. The name of the organization is most prominent , large space for a welcome box and news, with navigation menu on the left and photos on the right. I included a lightly drawn background image based on a map of the organization's region. The advantage of usi...