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How Do I Build My Pages?
My preferred HTML editor is any ASCII text editor! (I usually use Notepad, or when the file gets too large, I use WordPad.) When I edit files on-line, I copy the text from the GeoCities Advanced HTML Editor to Notepad. This way I can save the file on my harddrive and preview the page quicker. (And the working window has a much better view.) After I'm done, I copy the text from Notepad and paste it back into the GeoCities Advanced HTML Editor and save it there. For my Tripod pages, well, let's just say that their on-line editor does weird stuff I don't like. I work on those at home then ftp them. I try to keep my code clean and easy to read (like a good programmer should). When typing code within a set of opening/closing tags, I usually indent by two spaces. I turn WRAP on so's I can see everything (so viewing my source through a browser may yield very long single-lined strings).
To create images I use LViewPro. I'll usually minimize the image's color palette (by cutting the unused colors) to make the file smaller. When I place an image on a webpage, I try to remember to include the dimensions within the tag, for smoother loading and consistent placement.
The absolute best wave editor is GoldWave! It can edit most audio formats, including .WAVs, .VOCs, .AUs, .SNDs, and most .RAWs, plus many more formats! And sometimes it can deflash corrupted sound files, which saves you a buttload of pain. GoldWave also supports MP3 (but can only encode if you have an MP3 codec). (WinAmp sucks! Use MaPlay! It's freeware, and it works great!)
To upload files, I use WS_FTP, which works great. Once you get a transfer going, it usually won't be easily interrupted like the EZ File Upload. (For my “file transfer success” sound I use P_TC.WAV, which is Taradino Cassatte's “Yes!” from Rise of the Triad, which helps you feel all the happier when your transfers successfully go through!) WS_FTP Pro even lets you resume inturrupted FTP transfers.
After uploading new/updated files, I check the links as soon as I can, including downloads, to make sure they're linked and uploaded properly.
To implement those fancy quotation marks, I use two special characters: “ ”. In most ASCII text editors, they just look like garbage characters, but Netscape knows how to inturpret them, no matter where you put them, without mistaking them for regular quotation marks. (Very useful for comment fields.) I accidently discovered them when I used Wordpad to type some of my stories into HTML for the first time, back in 1997, and I accidently saved the files as non-normal text documents. The ASCII codes for my special characters are as follows:
Hold ALT, type the code, release ALT
Ë 0203
Ï 0207
Ö 0214
Ü 0220
ë 0235
ï 0239
ö 0246
ü 0252
„ 0132
“ 0147
” 0148
(German open quote)
(Open quote)
(Close quote)
To translate pages into German, I'll bring the English page up to date, then begin the nerve-racking process of translation. (It's a lot of fun, but sometimes you get sick of translating into a foreign tounge and need a long break.) To assist with translation, I have three dictionaries: 
Collins Gem German Dictionary, 1998 edition, published by Caledonian International Book Manufacturing Ltd. This is an excellent pocket dictionary, that I carried with me during the two years I lived in Germany. Some Americans weren't too satisfied with the English-German translations, but if you just double check your word with the well done German-English translation, you'll usually find the meaning you're looking for. The best thing about this book is that it gives the plural forms of most nouns, and includes an index of irregular German verbs.
- German-English / English-German
- Over 70,000 translations on 625 pages
- Dimensions: 3 x 4½ x 1-3/4 inches
- Price (in 1999): US$6.50
- ISBN 0-00-47047-8
Langenscheidts Millennium-Wörterbuch: Englisch, 2000 edition, published by Graph. Betriebe Langenscheidt. This was a special edition complete with shiny cover to commemmerate the new Millennium (a year early! Ha!). (Langenscheidt's books are normally yellow.) This heavy sucker is very useful, but doesn't provide many insights on plural forms (it's a book made for Germans looking up English words).
- English-German / German-English
- 120,000 translations on 1440 pages
- Dimensions: 5 x 7-3/4 x 2½ inches
- Price: Was DM39.90 (US$20), I got it on sale for DM15 (US$7.50) in Spring 2001
- ISBN 3-468-11 130-4
The Bantam New College German & English Dictionary, 1991 edition, published by Bantam Books. I had this book in high school and it is now my “useless” dictionary because the other two are far more resourceful. But strangely enough, whenever there's one word that I can't find anywhere, it's usually in here.
- German-English / English-German
- Over 70,000 translations on 768 pages
- Dimensions: 4 x 7 x 1-3/8 inches
- Price: US$5.99
- ISBN 0-553-28088-0
To generate pages with Asian text, I arrange monochromatic gifs. I use JquickTrans and CquickTrans to look up the Chinese characters, and I screen capture them in the MS Song font, size 26. CquickTrans gives Mandarin and Cantonese romanizations, so I can look up both. I recently discovered that these 16-bit Unicode characters can also be implemented with plain HTML on 8-bit character systems. The character's decimal value or its hexadecimal representation can be used, in the form of “&#[DECIMAL];” or “&#X[HEXADECIMAL];”. Using “漢 字”, the two characters 漢 字 should look like the GIF representations below: 
But I still prefere the oversized GIF versions because 1) you don't have to strain your eyes while trying to read compliated characters and 2) they're prettier. 
It's good for a website to have some sort of webpage directory, so I made a Network Map, complete with fancy-looking tree structures. Most sites will use some sort of special script to generate such a thing on the fly, but I did mine by hand, and maintenance got to be quite a hassle. So I finally wrote a program with a simple interface that will generate a new map page whenever I add/remove a page. I made this program (WAFFLMAP.EXE) as generic as possible, so other people can use it too. If anybody's interest, let me know and I'll make it available.
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