May 11, 2000

Alison Beman

1 Notepad- this program has no bells or whistles, but as a beginner, I feel it’s the best way to learn. I have complete control over my mark up, and if it doesn’t work I’m forced to fix it myself. After I feel comfortable with more HTML, I would like to use an editor that at very least, color codes the tags.

2 GIF Construction Kit- this is a sweet little program that does all the work for you (after you’ve created the GIFs, that is). I plan on registering my copy of it.

3 Paint Shop Pro- I didn’t end up using anything from this program on my final project, but I did appreciate its’ power. I am trying to decide if I will need Photoshop in the long run, or if Paint Shop Pro will be adequate.

4 Corel Draw 7- my husband does a lot of "printed page" graphics, so we already had this product loaded. I ended up creating my GIFs with it. I highly don’t recommend it for web graphics. It handles GIFs and JPEGs, but not readily, so I spent a lot of time doing file conversions, which was a pain. If all you ever need to do is crop photos or make thumbnails, it’s just fine for that.

5 HTML 4 For the World Wide Web by Elizabeth Castro- I have to recommend this book as an excellent quick reference guide. It was available at the College Bookstore last September.