Issue Number 02 - January 1999

Ordering books on line
Did you know that Amazon - the world's largest online bookstore - has now opened its operations in the UK. We tested out their service last month by ordering the latest edition of David Siegel's best-selling "Creating Killer Web Sites". [Review in next issue.]

The process of ordering at their web site is a bit long-winded, but it offers you plenty of opportunities to change your mind or correct your details. For some reason, they conceal the charge for postage until the very last moment - and yet you don't have to worry. It's a very modest UKP 1.95 minimum, plus 50 pence for each item.

You receive immediate email conformation that your order has been noted, plus updates the following day that it has been despatched. All very reasuring. The book arrived two days later - and we saved 25% on the current price.

The web site also features reviews of the book by other readers [which can be critical as well as positive]; interviews with the author; and a list of other titles chosen by customers who have bought the same book. You can even offer them your own review - but watch out! - they keep the copyright to it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Jason Olim, with Matthew Olim and Peter Kent, The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet, Top Floor, 1998, pp.236, ISBN 0-9661032-6-2. This is the fascinating account of 'how two kids in a basement grabbed the on-line music business'. The Olim twins started in 1994 with $1500 they had saved up to buy a guitar. Three years later they had a turnover of $16 million and had cornered the market in supplying CDs on line. It was done by not taking 'No' for an answer, making up the rules of electronic business as they went along, designing a Web site for customer convenience, and of course, lots of hard work. Review article at --

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/olim.htm

HTML design - a free tutorial
There are lots of free tutorials available in HTML and Web page design. Many of them either point you back to the [rather dry] lists of HTML standards which reside at <http://www.w3c.org> or they offer very simple illustrations of the basic <P>, <HR>, and <BR> tags - which you can learn in five minutes.

Joe Barta's HTML tutoral is a terrific collection of easy-step guides in page design. He does cover the basics - but also goes on to deal with tables, forms, and frames. Every point is spelled out very clearly, he shows you how to code the pages, and there are lots of screen shots to show you how it *should* look when you've followed his example.

You won't need any special design tools, such as Front Page [the doomed Microsoft program] because he shows you how to write using the simplest tool of all - which we all [well, almost all] possess - Windows Notepad.

He's also unashamedly pro-Netscape, and won't guarrantee that any of his tips will work in Internet Explorer. But these two small reservations aside, it is an excellent - and remember, completely free - guide to web site design.

It even inclues two really useful features - a font viewer and a colour picker. The font viewer reveals on screen the fonts you have installed on your system, and the colour picker shows you a chart of the famous 'browser-safe' colours, as well as their hexadecimal 'numbers'. It's a 1.3MB download - but worth every moment of the wait.

http://junior.apk.net/~jbarta/

Design extra I - publication
Design Tutor is a new publication which aims to help you improve your DTP productions. Unlike many other design journals, it assumes you are limited to simple tools such as a word-processing package and maybe a page layout program such as PageMaker.

The first issue covers topics such as font and typography basics, how to turn a dingbat into a logo, working with headlines, a newsletter makeover, and how to get free copies of the new Euro symbol.

It's elegantly produced, and has a fine eye for detail. Subscriptions UKP 27.00 for six issues. Contact --

Email: info@designtutor.com Tel: 01693 251142
Web: www.designtutor.com Fax: 01693 251146

Design extra II - Japanese textiles
If you are anywhere near the Museum of Modern Art in New York during the first part of January 1999, do yourself a favour and visit the exhibition of modern Japanese textiles.

This is an extraordinary and fascinating show of new techniques in fabric construction - including textiles blended with metals, fabrics constructed from new synthetic polymers, and materials which have been subject to chemical and heat treatment to form beautiful three dimensional surfaces.

You can ignore the long queue for the dribblings of Jackson Pollock which are also on view. Go straight to the desk and get the regular entrance ticket.

11 West 53 Street, New york, NY. Tel: 708-9400

http://www.moma.org

Typography - free screen fonts
Most of the fonts on your computer were designed for printing type onto paper. The sad fact is that most of them do not show up well on screen. This is because the screen shows everything in the form of small dots - called 'pixels'. These dots are not small enough to produce smooth contours or fine distinctions. [That's one reason why the default font on old computers was the much-maligned Courier. At least it was legible, even if ugly.]

Did you know Microsoft offers two more fonts designed for easier on-screen reading. If you do nothing else, download Georgia, Verdana, Tahoma, and Trebuchet and you'll find the Web much easier to read. If you're using any recent Microsoft products, you might find that you've already got these fonts installed. Check first.

You can download these fonts *free* - but if you are thinking of publishing in electronic format, don't imagine that this might solve some of your design problems. The strange fact is that although Microsoft gives them to you for nothing, you are *not* allowed to give them away yourself.

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/download

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fontpack

Free booklet on using the Web
If you are new to the Internet, or you're a teacher who needs support materials on the subject for your students, there is an excellent booklet available at the WELL site [Web Skills for Language Learning].

http://www.well.ac.uk

Editing - on screen and paper
If you write using a word-processor, you may have noticed something rather odd. You can create a perfect document, check the spelling, and even check the grammar - but when you come to print out the document you will notice things which you missed on screen.

These might be mistakes, or they might just be points of style or emphasis you want to change. If it's a long document, you'll feel like kicking yourself and you might feel guilty about all the paper you're wasting.

For many writers, editing work on screen and on paper appear to be two different things. Why is this? For some answers to this question, there's a document which summarises an email discussion which took place amongst professional writers on the Writing and Computers mailing list. Go to --

http://www.mantex.co.uk/reviews/editing.htm

Signing up with mailing lists
If you are in the educational sector and would like to keep up to date with what's happening in your subject, there's a *huge* collection of lists at MAILBASE. This is an academic service provided by the UK government [that is, with taxpayers' money] which operates email lists on almost every subject you could imagine.

Some of the lists are 'closed' and you must apply for membership. Some are moderated - which means that any contribution you make will be vetted first by a moderator. But the majority are open to anybody who wants to join.

All information is normally transmitted as email messages, but the web site contains a fascinating catalogue of the groups and an archive of their discussions. There is also a list of members.

http://www.mailbase.ac.uk

Best Internet provider of the month
Every month, Internet Monthly magazine runs tests on the services provided by every Internet Service provider in the UK. The results are listed in two categories:

* best over the last month
* best over the last six months

In the next issue

Free research newsletter
Free tips on web site promotion
Study Skills software program