In a Word KISS (keep it super simple).

    Not having high speed internet service and living in an area where cable or ADSL is not available I find it frustrating waiting for fancy, dancy, web pages to open only to find there isn't that much real information there. Intro pages that take forever to load before you can go to the real home page are particularly annoying. I prefer to see a minimum of pictures and special features and keep these features out of the way of the main pages, accessible with a link if needed. At least with a simple fast loading page style you can see right away that there is not much good information here and can move on without wasting much time.

    Other common web page features I dislike:

- Black or dark background with colored text that has little contrast and is hard to read.

- Failure to identify revision dates, and what revisions were made.

- Out of date sites that have not been kept current.

- Java script, as it bogs down my old computer.

- Documents that are intended to be downloaded that are not in .pdf format, although this I excuse if the page creator dos not have Adobe Distiller.

    This page is created using Netscape Composer and thus it views best using Netscape Navigator.

    I am not a professional web site designer, that I am sure is obvious. I started creating web sites out of the necessity to have a web site for our club on a $0.00 budget. I did have a budget over-run, in that I bought a book "Teach Yourself Netscape 4 Web Publishing in a Week" for $5.99 at Overwaitea on sale. The book is authored by Wes Tatters and Rafe Colburn and published by Sams Publishing of Indianapolis. It was published in 1997, so with the changes in technology would be now best found in a used bookstore. My Netscape software was provided by my internet service provider, so I had the tools I needed to get started. To manage my web files (transferring files to and from the web server), I use SmartFTP. It is available in a free version from download.com.
    All internet service providers provide a certain amount of space on their server for clients use as "personal web space" included in the price you are already paying. I would encourage other racers and small business people to have a go at posting their own web pages. Creating web pages should not be a black art. If you start with the basics, you can have a web site that is informative, and easy to update as the need arises. My ISP is Telus and their page for starting personal web sites is http://www.telus.net/BC/webspace.html . I see many examples where people have hired professionals to create a web site for them, but because of the cost or hassle, it never gets updated as new information is available. I suggest that if you have a web site done professionally, that you have them show you how to make changes and publish up-dates.
    Microsoft "Front Page" is a popular web site creation tool that I haven't used, yet. I didn't use it because it wasn't free. I now have a copy, so will give it a try and report later. I believe it should be a little more user friendly for amateurs than the system I use.

21-Dec-02