Marg: Hi Bill. Have you seen any great sites in Vienna lately?

Bill: The Grissom High School Clarinets have an interesting site. They have pictures of more different sizes of clarinets than I realized even existed.

Marg: Yes, and the link to the African Blackwood Project was fascinating.
I sure would like an opportunity to hear the Salzburger Mozart-Solisten!

Bill: Perhaps they'll be able to include some sound clips on their site in the future. The bassoon is a wonderful but exceedingly difficult instrument to play well, and the fact that Lynn Gaubatz played and taught at the Mozarteum speaks highly for her abilities.

Marg: Speaking of performance, there are some great tips for aspiring flautists at The Pond.

Bill: As well as some great links to Irish music like comhaltas and ceolas.

Marg: It's unfortunate when some really good sites miss out on receiving the Vienna Award because their sites don't meet the Geocities Guidelines. It appears some people forget to read them before designing their page.

Bill: I know there was one case where the applicant had two sites in the same neighborhood. Were there any other breaches?

Marg: Not this month, I'm happy to say. But we have to watch out for use of advertising banners in addition to the GeoGuide and Link Exchange. Those are the only two allowed.

Bill: Homesteaders wishing to provide links to commercial sites, where such links would provide the reader with information pertinent or related to the homesteader's own content, may do so provided that they receive no 'cash or cash-equivalent prizes' and and their site must have content of it's own and not just be a portal to other sites.

Site owners also should know that "remote loading" or "hotlinking" of files from their sites is specifically prohibited by Yahoo!Geocities. This means using your storage on Geocities' server to provide files to other Web sites. (The use of your banner in the Geocities banner exchange is the only exception to this I am aware of.) For instance, if you write a link to your banner or other file into someone's guestbook, or allow/request another site's page to load your banner or other file from your site, and that guestbook or page is seen thousands of times, then Geocities' server also has to present your file thousands of times too. This uses up the server's resources, which could otherwise be put to use serving your or some other homesteader's pages. (In technical terms, the server loses "bandwidth.") Furthermore, remote loading of files from other sites without their express permission is considered "stealing bandwidth" and is a major breach of "Netiquette." I have seen many pages where, in an attempt to bypass the copyright laws, a site designer has written a page that has dozens of MIDI files or images linked from other peoples' sites, usually without their knowledge. The argument is that since the files are not copied, there is no copyright violation. This is not true, it is offensive, and anything of this nature that we discover is sure to be an impediment to receiving the award.

Marg: This has implications beyond the Vienna Award, in that any site not meeting the guidelines can be taken down by Yahoo!GeoCities.

Bill: The other main complaint I have is that there were Broken Links on several of the sites submitted.

Marg: Yes. This is a sign that a site is not being regularly maintained.

Bill: It could also mean that the web author has not yet completed that page.

Marg: True, but then the link should not be activated. Perhaps just make a text note of "things to come."

Bill: And also check the HTML coding. Perhaps the error is there. At the very least, a link should point to a "stub" page that contains a message that the page is under development and a link back to the developed pages. A link that produces a "Not Found" response is unacceptable.

Marg: On the plus side, all of the applicants' sites worked in the major browers-IE and Netscape.

Bill: There was Content related to Vienna, which was interesting and original.

Marg: I learned about the ballet, the clarinet, the flute, Irish music, the Salzburger Mozart-Solisten and more! I was, however, concerned to see a lack of due credit for resources, in some cases. With music files and graphics not of your own making, information should be provided as to the creator and source. In some cases, permission from the source is also required (and usually a good idea).

Bill: Even when credit is given for content from an outside source, such content should be supportive of your own content and not be the primary content of the site. We want to hear your own views on whatever subject you present, not someone else's.

Marg: Presentation was probably the area requiring the most improvement. While "pleasing, readable, and easy to navigate" are our main requirements, the site has to work as a whole, in my opinion. The graphic design should complement the subject of the content. For example a Graphics Set (background, buttons,etc) featuring trucks, no matter how perfectly designed, wouldn't fit with a site about ballet. Unless, of course, the ballerina also drove the big rigs, and included some information for truckers on her site! And no matter how beautiful the background, if you can't make the text readable, don't use it. One way to place text/links on a highly decorated background is to use a table with a plain-colored background. Tables can also be used to improve spacing, another problem we encountered. If you already have a number of images on a page, a plain background is probably your best bet. If you are using background music, please give the visitor the option to turn it off, and also name the work and give proper credit.

Bill: Yes, nothing is more annoying in the long run than having to wait for a big hidden MIDI file to load up and start playing every time you return to a homepage to look for links to other pages in the site. As for navigation, at the very least every page should always have a link back to your homepage or some other page on your site. Beyond that, a clever and well-designed navigation system is a mark of an exceptional site, and will gain extra consideration in our evaluation. If you are using a background image, and have gone to the trouble to make sure your text is readable against it, make sure you remember to make the page's default background color similar to the color of your background image, so that if the background image file should not appear for some reason the text will still be readable.

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Summary Comments

Marg: In the pages I evaluated this month, I saw that a great deal of work had been done to provide pages with interesting/informative content. We are glad to have you in Vienna! Some very good sites could not be granted the award due to TOS infractions and/or broken links. We will be happy to re-consider, if you are able to make these changes. Almost all of the sites would benefit from some extra attention to presentation. Any others out there wondering if you should apply? I hope you have a better idea, now, of what we look for. In any case, we will always let you know what the problems were. If you choose to make the corrections, you are welcome to re-apply.

Marg's Hint of the Month: Choose your backgrounds wisely. They should complement the theme of your page, and text/links should be easily readable.

Bill: A few of our applicants have problems with layout and spacing. It's tremendously important to be aware of the differences between Web pages and print media, and design your pages with these differences in mind. A print page is fixed, once you put a word or image down on paper it's there in that space forever. Unfortunately, a Web page is malleable, the position of things depend on the type and version of browser, the screen resolution, default font size, and style and design of the HTML itself. So, if you want your page to be usable by everyone, WebTV, IE, Netscape, regardless of their settings, you have to be prepared to learn these differences and how they affect your presentation. Keep the absolute width of images, or a line of images, to 600 pixels or under. Don't try to force the text or images to follow a rigid layout, but learn to write clean, simple HTML that allows text to flow around on the page, as it was designed. Use tables to position things if you really need to have multiple columns, but try to not get dependent on them. If you must use embedded MIDI or other sound files, be sure you have included a way to allow the reader to turn them off.

Bill's Hints of the Month: Always set your background color to a similar color to any background image you may use so your text doesn't disappear if the image file doesn't turn up. And, ALWAYS check your pages for spelling and grammar errors, both in the content and in the code, and especially in URLs in links, mailtos, and forms.

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