All glories to Sri Guru and Sri Gauranga

Tips for sending photos
and preparing web pages


Last updated after receiving your feedback: 13 August 2005.

See also: our web page Templates.

Photographs

Our Nabadwip phone lines are often slow, so please send reasonably small photos. As a general guideline, use a picture editing programme on your computer to:

    i) make each photo a maximum of 500 pixels wide then (or if sending in a web-page, the size they will be in your layout):

    ii) "Save As..." a jpeg file with a quality of 50 percent (or 'medium').

    Yes, many computer programmes give a multitude of ways to adjust colour, sharpness, saturation, contrast, etc., but just the above simple two-step process will usually give quite good results with a reasonable compromise between picture quality and file size.

    Adobe Photoshop has a very efficient feature: 'Save for Web...' in the File menu.

    Please remember to send captions or descriptions. It can sometimes be quite a puzzle for us to sort out the arriving pictures. Best is to present the pictures and reports in the form of web-pages for Srila Gurudev to see and, where appropriate, for all to share.

Web Pages

If you haven't made web-pages before, then try the following:

-) save one of our picture pages to a new folder on your hard drive ('Save As...' and choose 'HTML source').
-) select your photos and name them consecutively according to the order you wish to put them in the web page.
-) adjust their dimensions to fit the layout, and save as 'jpeg' with quality of 50%. Save them in the same folder as the HTML file.
-) change the links in the web page so as to refer to *your* pictures.
-) add your own captions and headers in place of what was there.

Alternatively:

Most computer users are familiar with Microsoft Word which has a "Save for web" option, *but* it lays down very clumsy source code, and the result often only works presentably in Microsoft's own browser - Explorer, and not others.

Additional tips for web-pages

A safe motto for web-pages seems to be: 'Keep it simple.' Different browsers, different versions of the same browser, different preference settings, different computers and different operating systems, all have the potential for surprisingly different (and sometimes disastrous) views of the same web-page. So keep it simple for a better chance for everyone to see what you expect them to. It seems 'Explorer' is the most common browser, so at least check that your pages display OK in this programme.

Please *don't* use Microsoft Word to make web-pages. Its "Save for web" option invariably produces clumsy source-code often causing the resulting web-page to behave strangely in some browsers. Instead, 'Frontpage' is Microsoft's programme for creating web-pages.

Sending web-pages

Web pages normally have the extension '.html' or .htm.' These are plain text pages. Web pages show pictures by linking to them. i.e. the pictures are not embedded in the html page but the page instructs the browser to view pictures by 'linking' to them. Therefore when sending a webpage by email (or uploading it to the web), the accompanying pictures must also be sent.

Ensure your page and (only) the linked pictures are in one folder. The maximum size for one webpage with its accompanying linked files should be kept within about 200 K, 300 K at the most. If you have more pictures, make more pages. Then use Stuffit or Winzip to compress the folder. Attach the compressed file to an email and send this to us.
Do you need web-page manuals?

The world of code behind the webpages we see in our browsers is a constantly changing one, so all the more reason to keep your pages simple and safe. However if you need specific reference information or really want to go into the intricacies of web-page design, the following should prove helpful:
Note: Still, if you are unable to send web-pages, please do continue to send photos. Srila Gurudev is the number one fan of pictures, and your news via pictures is a substantial source of His Divine Grace's satisfaction.
 

Further Web-page tips, the next stage...

This section is to share further tips that have proved useful especially for those making their own sites:
  • Name files consistently beginning with the date of the event in form yymmdd-filename, where y=year, m=month, d=day. i.e. a webpage for 13 October 2004 would have a name: 041013-eventname.html. Why? Because it will sort chronologically and its date will be clear for ever.
  • Keep file names within 32 characters, including its extension. Why? So it's compatible with almost all current platforms.
  • When making captions, please bear in mind the following usage:
    'Srila' is for the Guru-varga only;
    'Sripad' is for sannyasis and senior Vaishnavas;
    'Sriman' is used for Mahaprabhu, but (to use clumsy 'diacritics') 'Srimaan' is used for those without initiation, or junior persons. Bear in mind that the web is not yet diacritic-text friendly.
  • Dates within pages, etc. should specify the month by name: '7 October 2004' or 'October 7, 2004' or whatever. The web reaches a world audience, and by putting the date as '10-3-2004' half the world will read it as '10th March 2004,' and half as 'October 3rd 2004.'
  • File names on the web:
    -) don't use spaces. Use - or _ instead.
    -) ONLY use numbers and regular letters, - or _ only.
    -) the web is CASE SENSITIVE so be careful.
Uploading files via ftp to the web:

If you have a website it basically works just like an external hard-drive which anyone can access via its address, or URL. If you have 'ftp access,' the following are useful for uploading files:

Web-design programmes:
  • Mac: Dreamweaver has proven efficient. 'FrontPage' seems to work quite well, but 'Microsoft Word' and 'GoLive' write all sorts of complicated stuff in the background which can make compatibility and troubleshooting a headache. Try doing 'Clean up html' in GoLive and it writes even more script in the background(!).
    However the best web-design programme for you will be the one you are already used to.
  • Mac: TextToHTML is the super-simple way to convert a text page into a web-page, maintaining simple formatting such as bold and italic. First save your document in RTF format (in Microsoft Word and most word-processors) then simply drop that RTF file onto the TextToHTML icon.
    http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/kristiaan

  • PC: Arachnophilia is a CareWare programme. In addition to several other features, this also converts RTF files to webpages.
  • PC: The HTML Editor is FreeWare and will also get you started:
    http://www.coffeecup.com
Web browsers useful for developers:
  • On a Mac, iCab (available at http://icab.de) has several useful features that make it particularly useful for web designers. One such feature is that when it saves a web-page with layout, it saves it as a ZIP file of the actual structure of the site it is from. Furthermore it does it without re-downloading everything all over again, plus the files, pictures, etc. are the same as the originals.
  • On a PC? Your suggestions are welcome.
SSI or 'Server Side Includes':
For maintaining consistency in several webpages, frames can be useful but tricky to make work properly, also they apparently don't show up in Search Engines such as Google, etc. However 'Server Side Includes' can help serve a similar function of maintaining a consistent feature on each page and thus simplify management of a site.

Simple usage of SSI:

  • First, for most servers you will need to change the extension of your web-page to .shtml (not just .html), then:
  • With the following code added, it's the *server* and not the browser that joins the elements of the shtml file together *before* sending it to the browser: <!--#include virtual="element_name.txt"-->
  • Note that the include file (element_name.txt in this example) contains no html headers, etc.
  • Use SSI with care: any links in the include file are relative to the 'mother' document. Also, if you plan to make your site available on CD (as we do) then remember to first do a search-and-replace for all those server includes.
  • It is probably safest to avoid the temptation to use JavaScript as it seems to be one of those pesky things that may or may not work for everyone.

Most readers of these 'Tips' pages are likely to be making web-pages for Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math and its many branches around the world. Especially for us, no doubt it is the content and not the formatting that is all-important. Above all we must take good care to avoid misrepresenting our Sri Guru-varga, so if in doubt about something, always err on the safe side.

And...
...p
lease let us know good sources of practical information and useful tips you may have for web-pages or anything related to the technical side of service. It's only because we haven't found such sources that these pages have been made.


  Tips para enviar fotos por email

Nuestras líneas telefónicas en Nabadwip a menudo son muy lentas, asi que, por favor, envíen fotos razonablemente pequeñas. Como una guía general, usen un programa para editar fotos en su computadora que haga cada foto de una amplitud de 500 pixels máximo, luego 'guárdenlas como...' ("Save as...") un archivo jpeg con una calidad del cincuenta por ciento. Esto generalmente ofrecerá un arreglo razonable entre la calidad de la foto y el tamaño del archivo (documento).

Si ustedes envían fotos de eventos de la localidad, será muy útil que las envíen ya preparadas en una web-page lista para colocarse en nuestro site (portal o sitio en la red) y/o en la computadora de Srila Gurudev. Si ustedes no han elaborado antes web-pages, entonces traten de guardar (save) una de nuestras páginas de fotos en su disco duro, después simplemente usen eso para sustituirlo con sus propias fotos, títulos y encabezados. Sin embargo, si no pueden enviar web-pages, por favor, continúen enviando fotos. Srila Gurudev es el fan número uno de las fotos, y las noticias de ustedes por medio de fotos es una fuente sustancial de satisfacción para su Divina Gracia.


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Founder-Acharyya: Srila B. R. Sridhar Maharaj
President-Acharyya: Srila B. S. Govinda Maharaj
www.scsmath.com - online since 1995. Updated regularly.