Knowing HTML is fine and dandy, and it's really not at all
hard to learn, given a little time. If you want a really distinctive,
bells and whistles, fancy-schmancy page learning it is the way to go. But
if all you want is to stake a claim
on the WWW and construct some nice simple pages I recommend using an
editor to write the HTML for you. Here are a few links that will lead you
to some programs that can help you construct your web pages.
*
Here's the "Lazy Man's" way to getting on the web, the
Automatic Home Maker. It's easy, just fill out one short little bitty form
and Wham! Bam! you got a home page! This generates a technicially
acceptable page, but its rather uniform and boring.
All of my pages were created using either HTML
Webweaver, World Wide Webweaver (the commercial version), Claris Homepage,
or using no editor at all. I highly recommend both Webweaver (in both
forms) and Claris Home. There are advantages to both programs. Webweaver
shows you all the HTML as you write up your page, and you have to preview
it in a browser to see what it would really look like on the web. If you
do want to learn HTML, but want a webpage RIGHT NOW, this is a good
program because it shows you what HTML does what. Claris Home is a much
more intelligent program, it's a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)
editor. It looks and behaves a lot like a word processing program, such as
Claris Works, Word or Wordperfect. You can look at the HTML if you want
to, but what your typing in in the window is almost exactly like what
you'll get when it's on the web so there is really no need. This is a
great program, especially if you just want to make cool looking pages
without know a whole lot of HTML. It also has the added plus of being
available for both platforms, PC and Mac.
*
Same thing as above but for Macs! Sorry for the lack of
selection.