Getting Help
Books may be a wonderful way to learn: you're sitting there with a computer running, a cup of coffee keeping your mind ticking over (you've got one there, right? A coffee, that is, not a mind), and a bookmark signifying your progress to date. Great. But what if you don't understand something in the book? What do you do next? Shouting at the book won't help (well, it may be therapeutic, but you won't get a response)!
Hopefully, you won't find yourself asking too many questions as you work through this book, but if you're the curious type -- or a quick learner -- you might want to go beyond what we're going to teach you here.
Whether you're getting stuck on something, or you want to learn more, your first stop should be the SitePoint Forums [18]. It will only take a few moments to register, and once you've done so, you can log in and ask questions in a range of different forums. Whether you have questions about writing your web site, you need marketing tips, or you're facing a few tricky graphic design issues, the hundreds of experts who contribute to and moderate these pages every day will be happy to help out.
Register at SitePoint's forums today; then, when we recommend further reading or research, you'll be good to go. Oh, and did we mention that all this friendly, helpful advice is 100% free of charge? I thought that might encourage you!
Summary
Believe it or not, we've now got everything we need to build our own web site -- and all without spending a cent! Not only do we have the basic tools -- our text editor (Notepad or TextEdit) and our web browser (Internet Explorer or Safari) -- but we've also looked at some alternatives to these.
We've reviewed some simple and freely available image editing programs that can help us spruce up our sites: Picasa for Windows, and GraphicConverter and iPhoto for Mac. Finally, we mentioned some more capable -- and more expensive -- options, such as Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
Now we've got the tools, let's learn how to use them!
Next Month
Chapter 2. Your First Web Pages
A wise man once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In chapter 2, you'll take that first metaphorical step on your journey towards web site enlightenment: you'll create your first web page. By the end of the chapter, you'll have duplicated that first page to form the beginnings of a multi-page web site.
About This Article
Glossary
[1] http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/
[2] http://www.sitepoint.com/glossary.php?q=C#term_8
[3] http://www.sitepoint.com/glossary.php?q=X#term_63
[4] http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/toc.php
[5] http://www.sitepoint.com/popup/popup.php?zone=2&popupid=78
[6] http://www.sitepoint.com/glossary.php?q=A#term_61
[7] http://www.notetab.com/
[8] http://www.sitepoint.com/glossary.php?q=F#term_45
[9] http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
[10] http://www.sitepoint.com/glossary.php?q=L#term_18
[11] http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/tryout.html
[12] http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/
[13] http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelmac/
[14] http://www.macromedia.com/go/tryfireworks/
[15] http://www.corel.com/paintshoppro/
[16] http://www.google.com/picasa/
[17] http://www.graphicconverter.net/
[18] http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/
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