Why build my own web site ?

Because I can, silly! If that doesn't sound like a good reason, you'll never understand why anyone would want to climb Mount Everest. It is this attitude that seperates homo sapiens from the rest of creation.

In January (or was it February) 2001, Chip (now Digit) magazine included a very basic HTML tutorial in the free CD. At that time, I didn't even know the expansion of HTML, and went through the tutorial out of curiosity. The potential of this language interested me, not for websites, but for other reasons I shall explain later.

The next step was to gain more information about HTML. Again, Chip came to the rescue. The software on the CD's sometimes included HTML code editors. While most of these were limited time demo versions, their HTML help files could be copied to a different location and used as a handy reference, long after the software had to be uninstalled. I currently use an editor called 1st Page 2000 from Evrsoft because:

a. It is totally free
b. It has a very good syntax highlighter
c. It has the complete reference files of htmlhelp.com
- It does have a few bugs, but it is easy to work around them.

So how do you go about learning HTML? There are any number of books on the subject, levels ranging from Beginner to SuperGeek. The Internet will give you a wide choice of free tutorials (use your search engine for something useful) in addition to providing you with the source code for the coolest sites. Once you have grasped the basics, developer sites such as htmlhelp.com provide extensive HTML reference and expert advice. You don't need any special software, any Plain Text editor (such as Notepad) will serve as a HTML code editor. Finally, you need a browser which shouldn't present you with a problem since you are using one to read this page.

What technical qualifications do you need to learn to build a website? You don't. All you need to have is an idea backed by imagination. You will find it much easier to learn HTML if you know what you want your web page to look and feel like, and try to figure out how to do it. If you learn HTML code and try to think of what you can do with it, you won't get very far. Start small but always dream of building the worlds coolest site.

Still Interested ? Read on to learn about CSS

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