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Hardware and Software Needs for Designing Web Pages

Here you will find a list of things that you may need to put together web pages.

Hardware
Product Price Notes
Computer $1000 and up You can use just about any computer to design web pages. However you will need to test you web pages in the latest web browsers. So you will want a modern computer. For IBM compatible computers, you should have a computer with a 500 MHz Pentium (or equivalent) processor and run Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, or XP. For Macintosh computers, you should use a PowerMac or G4 running System 7.5.5 or later. Whichever computer you get, it should have a CD-ROM drive, sound, and a minimum of 128 Mb of memory. More memory will boost the performance of the computer and is highly recommended. A CD burner makes an excellent addition. All the newer computers come with a USB port (that is often used with digital cameras and scanners. If you plan on getting digital video camera, you might look for a computer that included a Firewire port (or you may have to add it later).
Internet Connection $20 per month and up To transfer the web pages you designed to the web server. You company's network is probably connected to the internet. You can get free access to the web. See our Links page in the Information section. 
Scanner $60 Scanners have dropped in price the last few year. You will want a color scanner with an optical resolution of at least 300 (or preferably 600) dots per inch (dpi), 30-bit color (the number of colors that it can recognize), and if you plan on doing a lot of scanning, a SCSI or USB (if you computer supports it) interface. If you purchase a scanner with a SCSI interface, you will probably need a SCSI card for the computer (although many scanners include the card). For $100 to $400 you can buy a very good quality scanner that can handle all your web needs.
Digital Camera $200 and up If you need to add lots of pictures to your web site, a digital camera can be very useful. If you only need a few pictures on your web site, you might want to consider taking the pictures with a traditional camera, having prints made, and then scanning the prints into the computer. Look for digital cameras with at least 640 by 480 pixel resolution (dot horizontally by vertically) and a flash. Other things to look for and consider are zoom lens, close up picture-taking ability, number of pictures that it can hold, higher resolution, and ease of use.
microphone $10 to 150 Lets you capture sounds and voice tracks. Most modern sound cards support a microphone directly.
Video Capture Card $100 to 225 You will need a video capture card (or a video card with this ability) to capture video from a VCR or regular video camera. Be careful, few cards are compatible with Windows NT. Also, try seeing the quality of captured video before buying. Don't forget to look at the software offered with the card. We purchased a 3Com Big Picture Video Phone (www.3com.com). It requires a sound card to capture the audio and only works with Windows 95/98. Other cards to consider are the Winnov Videum AV card (www.winnov.com) and the Maxtrox Marvel G200-TV or G400 card (www.matrox.com).
VCR $100 to 400 Lets you convert sections of a VCR tape or live event to video that can be shown on the internet.
Digital Video Camera $700 and up A digital video camera collects the movie in a form that can be used directly by your computer. Make sure that the camera comes with software and cable to transfer the video to your computer. Also, make sure that it includes software that converts the video to the format you want or that another piece of software is available to convert the video. Most of the camera currently use a FireWire port to transfer data to the computer.

  

Software

Web Page Design
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Microsoft Office Yes Yes $500 to 800 Microsoft You can publish web pages directly from Microsoft Office. It's definitely the simplest way to begin but the resulting web pages are limited and won't display correctly on some computers. If possible, use MS Office 2000 since it does a much better job of creating web pages.
Stone's WebWriter - Yes Free Tucows Good ratings.
Arachnophilia - Yes Free Arachnoid Good ratings.
Adobe PageMill Yes Yes $99 Adobe  
Microsoft FrontPage Yes Yes $149 Microsoft Provides a lot of functions in a low priced package. Includes site management.
HotDog Professional - Yes $130 to 200 Sausage Software A strong web authoring tool with a good feature set.
Macromedia Dreamweaver Yes Yes $299 Macromedia Mid-range product. Provides rollover support.
Bare Bones BBEdit Yes - $119;
Academic: 79		 Bare Bones For the advanced user. This is more of a text editor but is used for many professional sites.
Adobe GoLive Yes Yes $199 to 299 Adobe This is a high-end product that provides more control over elements of a web page than other products. Includes site management. New.

 

FTP Programs

If your web pages are hosted on a different computer than the one you design on, you will probably need an FTP program to transfer the web pages from your machine to the web server.
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Microsoft  FTP - Yes free - A DOS program shipped with Windows. It is command based. Go to the DOS prompt and type FTP. Enter a question mark to see the commands.
CuteFTP - Yes $35 GlobalSCAPE A good quality FTP program.
IPSwitch WS FTP - Yes $38 IPSwitch A good quality FTP program. Lets you transfer folders.
Dartmouth College's Fetch Yes - $25;
Educational: free		 Dartmouth A good quality FTP program.

 

Clip-Art

Buying a clip art collection can save you a lot of time and dress up your web site but finding a collection that meets your needs is difficult. Here are a many packages available. Be sure that any collection you buy has the type of images you needs and are of acceptable quality. Over all, we have been disappointed with commercial clip-art. It takes a great deal of time to find the images that you are interested in.
Product Mac PC Type Link Notes
Art Explosion Yes Yes from $25 Nova Pretty good collection. Worth owning. Organized by category. You must scan through book to find the clip-art you want.
Corel Gallery Yes Yes from $25 Corel Pretty good collection. Worth owning. Organized by category. You must scan through book to find the clip-art you want.

 

Graphics Manipulation Programs

Used to create and modify graphics.
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Jasc Paint Shop Pro - Yes $99 Jasc A good mix of functions for the beginner and advanced user. Includes the ability to capture the screen and normally comes with Animation Shop (for making animated GIFs). Also very good at converting images to a format compatible with the web (GIF and Jpeg). Easy to use.
Microsoft PhotoDraw - Yes $149 Microsoft Easy to use. Limited feature set.
Adobe ImageReady Yes Yes $219 Adobe Web oriented.
Macromedia Fireworks Yes Yes $199 Macromedia Web oriented. Good animation control. Hard to use.
Deneba Canvas Yes Yes $375 Deneba Powerful but hard to use.
Adobe PhotoShop Yes Yes Commercial Adobe The best photo touch-up program available. Steep learning curve. Expensive.

  

Text Editors

Used to edit text file, massage information that you're trying to import into database programs, and make changes to web pages.
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Notepad - Yes free - Included with Windows. Featureless.
SimpleText Yes - free - Included with Mac OS. Featureless.
NoteTab - Yes free to $20 Fookes Free and low-cost shareware versions available. A powerful, easy to use editor.
UltraEdit - Yes $30 IDM A powerful, easy to use editor.
Bare Bones Software BBEdit Yes - $119;
Academic: 79		 Bare Bones Very powerful editor. Used to create many commercial sites.

 

Multimedia Programs

 
Product Mac PC Type Link Notes
Macromedia Flash Yes Yes $269 Macromedia Used to create moving graphics.
Apple QuickTime Pro Yes Yes $30 Apple Used to create high-quality movies and sound tracks.
RealProducer Yes Yes $150 to 499 RealNetworks Used to create streaming audio and video
Macromedia Director Yes Yes $999 Macromedia Used to create and deliver multimedia for the internet.

 

Database
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Paradox - Yes $290 Corel   
Microsoft Access - Yes Commercial Microsoft Mid-range product.
FileMaker Pro Yes Yes $199 to 999 Claris Mid-range product.
Power Builder Yes Yes expensive Sybase High-end product.
Microsoft SQL - Yes 5 client: $1399 Microsoft High-end product.
Oracle ? Yes expensive Oracle High-end product.

 

Statistical Analysis

 
Product Mac PC Price Link Notes
Microsoft Excel Yes Yes Commercial Microsoft This would be considered a low-end program for doing statistics. You can find median, average, min, max and a few others with it.
Epi Info - Yes Free CDC DOS based program developed by the Federal Government. It is pretty easy to use and includes quite a bit of analysis.
Epi Info 2000 - Yes Free CDC Windows based program developed by the Federal Government. Includes quite a bit of analysis.
Statistix - Yes Commercial    
SAS - Yes Commercial SAS  
SPSS - Yes $499 and up SSPS  
Note:
Products are listed by complexity with the most complex listed last. Don't ignore the low-end and free products because some of them really shine.

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Last modified: 07/28/04