WEB PUBLISHING TOOLS

MICROSOFT NOTEPAD

Description:

Notepad is a "dirt simple" text editor that ships with Windows as an accessory applet. File sizes are limited, formatting is practically non-existant, and you can have any font you like as long as it's Courier. These limitations are the beauty of Notepad.

Procedure:

I use Notepad to keep a running Konsultant's Log on my desktop at all times. I compose the content for the LAROKE site as it happens. Later, I embellish the Log content.

COREL WORDPERFECT 7

Description:

WordPerfect is one of the "big Three" competing Full-featured word processing applications. Version 7 has some HTML capabilities.

Procedure:

Currently, I only employ WordPerfect for spellchecking the content produced in the Notepad Logs.

Update 06.01.1999:

I have upgraded to WordPerfect 8 but I do not employ it anymore in Web site creation. For spellchecking I use Homesite's built-in utility.

COREL CORELWEB.DESIGNER v1.2

Description:

CorelWEB.DESIGNER is an easy-to-use WYSIWYG Web page designer. It is the first HTML application I became familiar with, and all my early efforts were created with Designer.

Procedure:

These days I use Designer to "prototype" Web page templates before "cleaning" them up with HomeSite.

Update 06.01.1999:

I do not use CorelWEB.DESIGNER any more (or any other WYSIWYG editor). All Web pages are currently created with Homesite.

ALLAIRE HOMESITE 2.5

Description:

Homesite 2.5 is a professional HTML editor. The introduction in Homesite's "Help" file calls it the most powerful - and most affordable - HTML editor available for Windows 95 and NT 4 and I can't argue with that statement.

Procedure:

I use Homesite to manage my Web projects (all the files of a particular site), and to clean up the HTML code of any pages prototyped in a WYSIWYG editor.

Update 06.01.1999:

I do not use any WYSIWYG editor. All Web pages are currently created with Homesite.

JALAPENO HOT BUTTONS 1.0.2

Description:

Hot Buttons allows the creation of Web page "buttons" as well as graphic "headings", "bullets" and "rules". In addition you can import a variety of graphic file formats to save as transparent GIFs. It is a simple utility that doesn't try to do a lot, but what it does do, it does well.

Procedure:

Originally, I created the LAROKE site navigation buttons at Pixelsight Graphics, a wonderful online graphics utility site. The last time I visited Pixelsight to make additional navigation buttons, my password had expired and, due to the tremendous popularity of the site, new users were not being accepted. "Up the proverbial creek", I turned to Hot Buttons for my navigation button replacements. I also currently employ Hot Buttons for producing horizontal "rules" graphics.

WEBTRENDS VIRTUAL WEBTRENDS v4

Description:

Virtual WebTrends creates reports showing the activity on the LAROKE site. It downloads the access.log from the Web site and imports it into a database from which it produces several well-detailed reports.

Procedure:

I run a daily report which shows me which pages are the most popular and who is visiting my site (the ISP's of the visitors in most cases).

RHINO SOFTWARE FTP VOYAGER 6

Description:

FTP Voyager is a drag-and-drop FTP Client program for Windows 95/NT 4.0 by Rhino Software. Inc. It offers a nice Windows Explorer type of interface and it works well with the Wingate Firewall/Proxy Server. I don't use all these features yet, but FTP Voyager lets you update a Web site with a single click, transfer files directly between FTP servers, and resume interrupted downloads.

Procedure:

File maintenance on the LAROKE site is performed with FTP Voyager client software. The LAROKE file structure on the remote host site is displayed in upper pane and the local hard disk version of the site is in a middle pane. The actual FTP commands scroll by in a bottom pane when an action takes place. New files are dragged from the local drive pane to the host site pane, 'an that's as "paneful" as it gets B-)

MARKETWAVE HITLIST STD. ED. v3

Description:

Hit List creates reports showing the activity on the LAROKE site. It downloads the access.log from the Web site and imports it into a database from which it produces several well-detailed reports.

Procedure:

I run a daily report which shows me which pages are the most popular and who is visiting my site (the ISP's of the visitors in most cases).

Update 06.01.1999:

I had to abandon Hitlist when the WinGate Firewall/Proxy Server was installed on our network since I could not get it to work through WinGate. The LAROKE site has been recently moved to Verio hosting services which allows me to use WebTrends for the same analysis functions.

QUARTERDECK PROCOMM PLUS

Description:

Procomm Plus is a group of integrated communications modules including Data and Telnet Terminals, Fax, Web Browser, Internet Mail, Internet News Reader, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

Procedure:

File maintenance on the LAROKE site is performed with Procomm's FTP client software.

Update 06.01.1999:

ProCOMM Plus has been replaced by FTP Voyager.

WEBSCRIPTS WEBBBS 3.21

Description:

WebBBS is, as the name implies, a Web-based bulletin board. Unlike most other such boards, though, WebBBS stores messages as simple text files and creates HTML pages "on the fly." This means that the message index can be tailored by the user based on date and/or subject (via built-in keyword search capability), and can be viewed as either a chronological or a threaded list. It also means that administration is a breeze! WebBBS supports automatic quoting of message text and e-mail notification of those who want to know immediately when a new message has been posted. It also offers an archive-only option and "cookie" support! (Version 3.21; April 28, 1999)

Deployment:

Despite the fact that I know nothing about PERL scripting, I had the LAROKE Stump the Puzzler Discussion Board up and running on the LAROKE site in three days time using WebBBS as the engine. It works with my CSS stylesheets with very little modification.

WebBBS will also use Matt Wright's HTTP Cookie Library if you have it installed on your host. This combination provides the forum visitors to "personalize" the forum and save the settings for future visits (if they have their browsers set to accept cookies).

MSAI HTTP COOKIE LIBRARY 2.1

Description:

HTTP Cookie Library is a Perl 4 and 5 compatible library which allows you to easily use Persistent Client State HTTP Cookies by allowing you to get the cookies from the environment, set cookies, cookies, compress multiple cookies into one, change the expiration date, domain and path, and more all with easy subroutine calls.

Deployment:

Cookie Library is used by making calls to it from other Perl scripts. In my case, all I had to do was install it in the proper directory, then let WebBBS know where it was. WebBBS was already set up to make the proper calls.

LAROKE Microcomputer Consultants
155 East Boca Raton Road
Boca Raton, Florida 33432
(561)368-0659 (Tel & Fax)

Issued Wednesday June 2, 1999

Updated Tuesday June 22, 1999

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