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You're web site should be like a palace made of pixels - but that doesn't mean you can't use text, vectors, sounds and anything else which might come along.
IMPORTANT most things (pictures, sounds etc.) are automatically copywrited by whoever produced them so make sure you can legally use anything you want on your site.
If you don't know what pixels, vectors and whatnots are, don't worry, that's our problem. All you need to concern yourself about is the content. This may sound like a lot of work but how much you do is rather up to you. We can't produce your web site unless we know what you want and probably have some background information. You probably already have a fair amount of the material for your web site. Whether you give us text and image files and detailed notes of what you want on each page or a pile of papers and vague instructions is rather up to you. The more you do, probably the less we have to do and the cheaper it will be for you. It's probably a good idea if you consider the following (and we can help you with this):- What do you want to say on your site? This really dictates everything else. If you're a business you probably want to sell your products and/or services. That probably means telling people about your products. However you may also want to impress shareholders or present a good image for the general public. Perhaps you have some political, social or religious cause to publicize. If you're a charity, political party or non-profit organization, you probably want to tell people about what you do and your ideology. Perhaps you're trying to help people who have some problem and want to disseminate information about it. Do you want to convey news for an organization? Perhaps you want to get people to tell you what they know about some mystery.
- Is you're site for the internet or a LAN (or perhaps a CD ROM or something)?
- Who do you want to view your site:
- People with a specific combination of browser and plug-ins (presumably on a LAN but you could put the software on a CD ROM)?
- People with high end computers?
- People with cheap or old computers?
- People using portable devices?
- People with a lot of technical knowledge?
- People with little technical knowledge?
- People with impaired vision (hearing might be an issue if you have lots of sounds)?
- People with a poor grasp of English (Pixel Palaces currently doesn't have any employees who are competent in any other languages)?
- Children?
- Adults (if so, is it "child friendly")?
- Pretty well anybody?
- What sort of content do you want on your site (not necessarily a complete list):
- Text?
- Tables
- Pictures
- Photographs?
- Drawings?
- Animations?
- Interactive diagrams - like this SVG comic?
- Sounds?
- Movies?
- 3D models (these can be viewed from multiple directions and can be animated and/or made interactive)?
- Interactive presentations?
- Searchable databases?
- Forms (for orders, questionnaires etc.)?
- Electronic commerce (secure transfer of money)?
- Effects (like changing backgrounds, popping up windows or the random gargoil icons)?
- Games?
- Downloads (allows users to transfer computer files to their computers)?
- Uploads (allows users to transfer files from their computers to the server)?
- Bulletin boards, mailing lists etc.
- How do you want your site arranged? Presumably some sort of hierarchy of pages on related subjects. Do you want a frame at the side (or top) with a table of contents in it? Do you want to navigate using an image map or 3D model?
Having decided this, you must decide what material you have from which we can prepare you site:- Computer data (e.g. word processor files, graphics files). This is most convenient for us and therefore probably the cheapest for you. Our hardware can read a number of different sorts of media and files can be emailed to us. Our software can read, interconvert and edit a wide range of file formats.
- Tape recordings, video tapes, sound CD's etc. This could get awkward, depending on what you want us to do with them and the quality. Do you want us to put a poor quality video on the internet with the quality somehow improved, or do you want us to use the information from it in an interactive presentation?
- Text on paper. We can scan typing and use OCR software. If we have to type a lot of stuff in, it could get expensive.
- Photographs and other artwork. We can scan pretty well anything, including slides and negatives. We can also photograph things that can't be scanned (like murals and large sculptures).
- Rough notes. These can be scanned and we have a range of computer software to bring your ideas to life.
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