Join our nationwide web design service.

We are expanding a chain of website malls around North America
 & we are looking for regional representatives to do simple website
designs for small businesses.  You work directly from your home
and you choose the hours that you work.  If you would like to
make an extra $100, or $200 per week in your spare time, this
is an excellent way to do it.  It doesn't matter where you live
in North America.

For information, go to http://www.cityusa.net/sos/  TODAY because
we are looking for quality people immediately.  There is no cost
to you and no experience is necessary.

Simple Online Solutions
431 Old Best Road
West Sand Lake, NY 12196

George Duggan (Web...@cityUSA.net) wrote:
: We are expanding a chain of website malls around North America
:  & we are looking for regional representatives to do simple website
: designs for small businesses.  You work directly from your home
: and you choose the hours that you work.  If you would like to
: make an extra $100, or $200 per week in your spare time, this
: is an excellent way to do it.  It doesn't matter where you live
: in North America.

Well, I don't know what to say. This isn't spam, even though clearly
off-topic. Nor is it really a scam, but certainly not competent
business either. What they're doing is conceptually a good idea,
but they're doing it in a rather half-assed manner.

Well, I'll reply in the same manner. Your post was half-way between
spam and a reasonable offer. This reply will be half-way between a
flame and reasonable advice. =)

: For information, go to http://www.cityusa.net/sos/  TODAY because
: we are looking for quality people immediately.  There is no cost
: to you and no experience is necessary.

Ok, I went to the page you mention. It isn't actually broken (well
except for a few missing quotes) but it certainly isn't good, or
even barely competent, web design.

It is true that no previous experience is really needed to make
simple web pages, even manually. In fact, for simple pages like
the one mentioned above, it takes less effort to type the tags
than to play with a WYSIAYG [1] HTML editor. Not to mention that
you get real, valid web pages instead of Netscape tag soup.

But did he do that? Of course not. As for the OpenUp pages
themselves, I don't know how they were done, but they're even
worse. If you can't do better than he did, you shouldn't do
web pages at all. If you can, you shouldn't work for someone
who can't and/or won't.

: Simple Online Solutions
: 431 Old Best Road
: West Sand Lake, NY 12196

Simple?

You certainly didn't solve the problem of putting up a text
only page very simply, did you? Simple would've been to type
just a few simple tags with notepad, and then to learn some
more HTML. Like this:

<title>Minimal HTML2.0 document</title>

<h1>Simple Web page</h1>

<p>This is how easy it is to create a simple HTML document.
No backgrounds, no tables, no other fancy tricks, but quite
adequate for a page like the one above.</p>

<p>Just put a title in the top, and then the document itself.
Use H1 for the top heading, then P for each paragraph. For
P, the closing tag &lt;/P&gt; isn't necessary. Oh, and if
you want to use the less-than and greater-than signs in text,
use &lt; and &gt;. For an ampersand, use &amp;. Don't forget
the semicolon!</p>

<h2>Other things to add</h2>

<p>You can even use sub-headings, all the way down to H6. (or
was that H7, no-one ever seems to use the smallest ones) They
even look much better than faking headings with font changes.

<p>Or maybe some images. They're easy, as long as you don't
try any layout tricks. Just include them in text.
<img src="easy.gif" alt="It's easy!"> Don't forget the
alternative text. For plain decorations, use ALT="".

<p><img src="fancy.gif" alt="">

<p>For stand-alone images, just put them in a paragraph of
their own. You can do all sorts of layout, but it's a bit
harder. Check the <a href="http://www.htmlhelp.com/">Web
Design Group</a>'s pages for details. Incidentally, that's
how you do links. 

<h2>Ascii art in HTML</h2>

<p>And, since this is <a href="news:alt.ascii.art">a.a-a</a>,
I'll have to show how to do preformatted text:

<pre>
 |   o |   _   _|_ |   o  _  |
 |   | |/ /_)   |  |-. | (_  |
 |__ | |\ \_,   |  | | | __) o
</pre>

There. That's it. Have fun!

--
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,    )''        .       /\_    .     '     ,/\   .          ,    ``(  ,
_\__/ |__.'\._______,--;_'_`-.___,.______,/_,_`.__,-.__'__,/`-._,_| \____
 ,_f_)\. Ilmari Karonen  ilt...@sci.fi  http://www.sci.fi/~iltzu/  /(_|_,.