Creating Web Sites Bible, Third Edition

Chapter 1. The Basics of Building Web Pages and Sites

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Web browsers

• Web pages

• Web sites

• Analyzing Web site types

• Understanding Internet demographics

• Determining your approach

• Dos and don'ts of Web site development

If you have a completely solid, totally clear idea of exactly what you want to do on the Web, you can safely skip this chapter — maybe.

Are you absolutely certain that you have considered all the details? How does your site compare to other similar ones? Where does it fit in? What are the differences between them? Are those differences enough to distinguish your Web site, to attract visitors away from competing sites? Have you covered everything from setting a budget to grasping current Internet demographics? Has it occurred to you that you might want to avoid some apparently useful technologies?

If your answer to any of these questions isn't a resounding "yes," you should start right here and read this chapter before you do anything else.

Starting here really means stepping back and taking a look at the origins of the technologies we use today and that ubiquitously govern our communications, our transports, our trade, our military, our education, our medicine, our understanding of ourselves, and the direction of our society to come. These are astounding transformations, and we must spend a bit of time looking at the roots and vines to better understand the fruit of the Information Age. The future cannot be predicated from a present that has no past.

Therefore, this ...