Graphics (all .gif files) created in Adobe Photoshop Elements (sometimes with a bit of help from Corel Draw). Photos also processed in Adobe Photoshop Elements.

Pages were originally laid out using Word 2000, mainly by dropping text boxes into cells of a table and typing in, or inserting graphics. Early on I tried other stuff (Net Objects Fusion, Hot Dog etc) from the magazine cover discs, but wasn’t really fluent enough for them. The problem with using Word though was that the HTML produced was unintelligible (each page had a subdirectory which meant common graphics were copied over and over, and then doubled again for some reason (to do with something called VML), plus I needed to edit the code rather than ignore it to do things like the rollover buttons.

Tried to cut down the code whilst in Word (or using Notepad and IE) but layout kept going horribly wrong. So I ended up starting from scratch and hard coding everything. Used Hot Dog 5 since it at least tells you when something isn’t recognisable and explains a bit about HTML tags and stuff. For some text (e.g. this) I still used Word and then copied the relevant code across.

Overall structure of the library of files handled manually rather than let programs do anything. Code gradually refined over time (I've lost track of the number of versions). Pages tested for function and layout in Internet Explorer 5.5 and Netscape 6.2. Early versions also tested in Netscape 4.5 and I know this doesn't look as good.

For the moment I've moved over from Hot Dog to AceHTML 4 Pro (another HTML editor, but more up-to-date). Also, the formatting of text is now handled by an external Cascading Style Sheet (another part of the learning process). Latest learning has been thrashing around with Javascript.

Photos captured on a Minolta Dimage X and Pentax Optio 555 and everything processed on a Fujitsu-Siemens P2020 Lifebook.