Poor Richard 27
#027/28-May-99
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
Over 24,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
IN THIS ISSUE
- Beginner's Column: More on Sales Tax
- Free Drawing for Web Design Book
- Graphics Programs for Web Design (And Lots of Them!)
- Free Automated Search Utilities
- Drawing for a Free PC
- Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
- Book Reviewers Wanted
- Reading Back Issues
**** IF YOU FIND THIS NEWSLETTER USEFUL ... FORWARD IT TO FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES ****
Beginner's Column: More on Sales Tax
In the last issue I discussed the U.S. sales tax situation -- how to decide whether or not you have to charge sales tax:
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/026.htm#begin
There's a little more to the story that I didn't mention before, the question of whether downloaded software is taxable. If you put software into a box and sell it in a store, you'll pay sales tax on it in most stores. But what if you sell basically the same product -- the software -- but without a box? That is, if you allow customers to download the software from your Web site? Do you have to charge tax?
And what about information purchased from a Web site? Perhaps you're selling information in some form that, if it weren't being sold online, would be printed in a book, sold in a store, and on which tax would be paid. If you sell this information in electronic form online, do you have to charge tax?
Maybe, maybe not.
Seventeen states that normally charge sales tax (five states have no sales tax, online or off), exempt online sales of software and information. And another eight exempt the sale of information online. How do you know which states? Well, you can call your state's tax offices, of course. You might also refer to the "Internet Taxation Table" at the Vertex Tax Cybrary: http://www.vertexinc.com/taxcybrary20/CyberTax_Channel/taxtable_72.html
By the way, according to this page one state, South Carolina, has exempted items sold over the Internet from sales tax, at least until October 21, 2001.
*******************FREE PC GIVEAWAY!!!**************sponsor****
Two former Dell Executives want to give you an opportunity to earn extra cash and A FREE PC! Become a Hand Technology Consultant (TC) and get your choice of:
- A Free Personal Computer: Cyrix M II-333
- An Intel Pentium III Computer for only $699
BUT HURRY... there are only 10,001 PCís to give away!
For complete details:
http://ads20.focalink.com/SmartBanner/page?15973.28
---sponsor-----------------------------------------------------
Free Drawing for Web Design Book
Jim Jackson of Destiny Technologies is holding a free drawing to win a copy of "Poor Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site."
I would highly recommend this book ... except that I'm biased, as I wrote it. For more information, visit http://www.destiny-technologies.com/lounge/
Graphics Programs for Web Design (And Lots of Them!)
Thanks very much to all my readers who sent information about graphics programs after I mentioned in the last issue that I'm looking for a good .gif/.jpg manipulation program. I wanted to be able to shrink images, reduce the color palettes, and add drop-shadow behind images.
Here, then, is what I learned. First, here's a list of the programs that readers told me about, sorted according to the ones that got most votes:
PaintShop Pro - 31 Votes
http://www.jasc.com/
Ulead PhotoImpact and Smart Saver - 10 Votes
http://www.ulead.com/
IrfanView - 9 Votes
http://stud1.tuwien.ac.at/~e9227474/
Macromedia Fireworks - 9 Votes
http://www.macromedia.com/software/fireworks/
Adobe ImageReady - 6 Votes
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/imageready/
Adobe PhotoShop - 4 Votes
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/photoshop/
Adobe ImageStyler - 2 Votes
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/imagestyler/
Ignite - 2 Votes
http://www.ignite-it.co.uk/
Picture Publisher - 2 Votes
http://www.micrografx.com/
ThumbsPlus - 2 Votes
http://www.thumbsplus.com/
Ulead WebRazor - 2 Votes
http://www.ulead.com/
Adobe Photo Deluxe - 1 Vote
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/photodeluxe/
http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/photodeluxebe/
AutoGraphicsHTML - 1 Vote
http://www.fcoder.com/autographics.htm
CorelDraw - 1 Vote
http://www.corel.com/products/graphicsandpublishing/
Debabelizer - 1 Vote
http://www.Debabelizer.com/
GIFWorks (free Web-based tool) - 1 Vote
http://www.gifworks.com/
GifCruncher (free Web-based tool) - 1 Vote
http://www.gifcruncher.com/
GIF Lube (Web-based tool)
http://www.WebSiteGarage.com/turbocharge/gif_lube/
GIFOptimizer (free Web-based tool) - 1 Vote
http://www.gifoptimizer.com/
GifWizard (Web-based tool) - 1 Vote
http://www.gifwizard.com/
Graphics Workshop - 1 Vote
http://www.mindworkshop.com/alchemy/alchemy.html
ImageVise plug-in for PhotoShop - 1 Vote
http://www.boxtopsoft.com/
imagoWEB (formerly Visua) - 1 Vote
http://fabrizio.jth.it/imagoweb.htm
JPEG Optimizer - 1 Vote
http://www.xat.com/
MGI Photo Suite - 1 Vote
http://www.mgisoft.com/
Microsoft Imager (part of MS Office) - 1 Vote
http://www.microsoft.com/
Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 - 1 Vote
http://www.microsoft.com/
NetMechanic GifBot - 1 Vote
http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot.htm
Xara3D - 1 Vote
http://www.xara.com/
Although they're in "vote" order, there are still some interesting items lower down in the rankings -- note, for instance, the free Web-based tools. (And in some cases, perhaps, great products have got low votes simply because not many people know about them or because they're expensive.) Here's a quick summary of what people told me about some, though not all, of these products. (I haven't checked all these programs myself!)
PaintShop Pro
As you can see, there was an overwhelming vote for PaintShop Pro. Users say that it's great for "animated gifs, image browsing, most website graphics and titles, screen shots, drop shadows, buttonize, chisel, cutout, and so on." Reportedly it works with PhotoShop plug-ins, too.
A typical comment is that it's "second in quality only to Adobe PhotoShop, at a far far lower price." (You can try it for free, and buy the product for around $60.) Some readers claimed that it's easier to use than PhotoShop, and even has more features. (Others claim that PhotoShop's better, but perhaps not worth the additional cost.) It includes a program called Animation Shop, which will reduce the size of animated GIF files.
I downloaded and worked with this program, and it is very good. The documentation's not too good though, which makes it harder to learn. Look for some logical term in the Help file's index and you probably won't find it -- I looked for "shadow" and "drop," but didn't come up with anything, and it took me a while to figure out why many of the menu commands were disabled -- the documentation didn't say. (It's because many commands won't work if your images are 256-colors or less; they must be set to 16.7m colors.)
If you decide to use this program, check out a book by a friend and fellow writer-turned-publisher, Andy Shafran, "Creating Paint Shop Pro Web Graphics": http://www.muskalipman.com/graphics/
Ulead PhotoImpact and Smart Saver
"A full graphics program." Version 3 added the JPG/GIF "SmartSaver", for reducing image sizes. One reader recommended buying an Version 3, rather than 4, because it includes a thumbnail generator, "Ulead Photo Explorer" (which was dropped from 4.x to be sold separately), and can be found for as little as $19.
IrfanView
"Great for reviewing and managing large collections all kinds of graphics. It will reduce pictures very reliably in most formats... small, unobtrusive, and simple." It's a free product, too, and the author is reputedly very responsive to suggestions for changes.
Macromedia Fireworks
"For image compression, there's only one program that does it all ... Macromedia Fireworks 2, available for a free 30-day trial." "You can remove colors by hand or use the export wizard which allows you to set an export size." "Also creates flawless code for HTML tables and rollover buttons." "For pixel size reduction, batch processing, image slicing and exporting to Web friendly formats Macromedia Fireworks is the hands down winner." Apparently this product does a lot, including generating Javascript for mouseovers and helping with imagemap creation.
Adobe ImageReady
"The absolute hands-down best program." "It can be configured to do palette optimizations using batch processing. Just drag and drop groups of images. "Remove ALL colours that are totally unnecessary for web site viewing on any computer -- a 101k image can be reduced to 25k in a snap ... with virtually little, if any, loss of image quality." "It will show you the approximate download time of the file size, in Real-time, before actually saving the changes of the newly compressed file. You can compare the different file compressions side-by-side as well."
Adobe PhotoShop
"Create and manipulate your images in unlimited number of ways! You can also reduce the palette colors while saving the file. But, this program is not so easy to learn for beginners." "Bar none, the best graphics program is Adobe PhotoShop. Ya gotta spend the cash, but the outcome is well worth it."
Adobe ImageStyler
"ImageStyler is really good at simple image creation -- like buttons and navigation graphics. This tool is aimed at the low end developer."
Ignite
"5 Cow rating from Tucows; ZD Net top buy rating; and given lots of top reviews by UK and EU magazines. A serious competitor to Fireworks at a considerably better price. The author is _very_ responsive to bug reports, criticisms and requests for features."
Picture Publisher
"It seems to do everything that PhotoShop can do, more easily, and at a fraction of the price." "The best value all round photographic editing package on the market. It does virtually everything that Adobe PhotoShop can do but at a much lower price."
ThumbsPlus
"I don't do a lot of image manipulation but Thumbs Plus has let me change the dimensions and palette of an image, as well as saving it in any of various formats ... shareware."
Ulead WebRazor
"VERY good at showing you before & after compression and the actual view quality." "It has a 'Smartsaver' utility that is so easy, everyone should try it! ... quick, easy, and just what the inexperienced person needs to compress their files down ... It also allows you to view the original and compressed files, side-by-side."
AutoGraphicsHTML
"AutoGraphicsHTML uses a simple wizard interface which allows you to quickly prepare images for publishing onto the WWW. The program handles six graphics images, including jpeg, gif and bitmap. The output is placed in a separate folder and consists of: prepared (converted to gif or jpeg)large images, created thumbnails and HTML files with hyperlinks from the thumbnails to the fullsize images."
CorelDraw
"To shrink the image, resize and watch the space it occupies go down. Very easy, just state what size you want. Reduce the color palettes? Go to "convert to 8-bit palette" and you are done. You can do the same thing in PhotoShop but it is MUCH MORE expensive, so why bother? Corel Draw 8 is available without the vector based program, and that makes it even cheaper, if all you plan on doing is manipulating photographs. You can add drop shadows, make transparencies,change colors and so on ... There is nothing that you can do in PhotoShop that you can't do in CorelDraw."
GIFWorks (free Web-based tool)
For adding a drop shadow (and other effects, such as button effects) try GIFWorks."
GifCruncher (free Web-based tool)
"Fully minimize files for web images."
GIFOptimizer (free Web-based tool)
"An on-line program that simplifies colors and reduces size, and makes buttons with shading. The options are limited (I think it only works with .gif files) but it's free and easy to use!"
ImageVise plug-in for PhotoShop
"ImageVise is a JPEG/GIF/BMP/PNG etc. compressor which will let you reduce Pixel Depth, Color Palettes etc. I find it usually reduces fill size by 40-70% and is very straight-forward to use."
imagoWEB (formerly Visua)
"A freeware image viewer, editor, and converter. Supports the most popular file formats ... lets you perform file-management tasks, cut-and-paste with the Clipboard, create thumbnails, perform basic screen captures, and acquire images from your scanner. Add impressive special effects to your images with filters such as blur, oil paint, mosaic, page curl, wave, mirror, and more ... a zero-cost way to view and manage graphics."
JPEG Optimizer
"Instantly cuts down file size of jpegs. I use it all the time."
MGI Photo Suite
"A great program for manipulating graphics and photos and doing what you want to do. It's cheap, fast, and efficient ... You can catalog pictures with it, open many dozens of pictures at the same time, etc."
Xara3D
"If you need drop shadows, for text, Xara3D is great."
Thanks again for all your recommendations!
---------------------------------------------------------------
Promoting a product online? Want to know what really works?
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions is stacked full of commonsense advice on how to _really_ make an impact online! Real-life techniques that work! Don't be led astray by advice from magazine writers who've never sold a product online ... read this book and learn from people who've actually done it. For more info, visit http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
---------------------------------------------------------------
Free Automated Search Utilities
In the last issue I included some information on Web-clipping services, from Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions (written by myself and Tara Calishain):
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/026.htm#clip
For more information about this book, visit
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
As promised, here's the information about other ways to find out where your product or company is being mentioned. These are free services that can automatically inform you of relevant changes to Web search engines and other sites.
TracerLock http://www.peacefire.org/tracerlock/
TracerLock is a free service, sponsored by Peacefire, which allows you to monitor AltaVista for the occurrence of up to five sets of keywords. For example, you could monitor for all of the following:
- acme AND electric
- acme AND electrician
- "acme electric"
- "electrical supply"
- acme AND electric AND purchased
Each day TracerLock will search AltaVista for pages that match your search term and were indexed exactly three days previously. If there are results, the first ten will be sent to you in an e-mail. TracerLock only searches AltaVista, but AltaVista has a big database. If you want to track your company, this is an excellent addition to your toolbox.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
| TIP: Check the Page Source
| Did you get a match for a Web page that mentions your company,
| but you can't find a mention of your company anywhere on the
| page? Check the page source. You might find that your trademark
| is being used as a Meta-Tag keyword.
The Informant http://informant.dartmouth.edu/
The Informant works a little like TracerLock, but covers a lot more ground. Here's what happens. First you have to register (the service is free), and specify how often you'd like to receive search engine updates-once every three, seven, 14, 30, or 60 days. Next, you specify three queries-sets of words where you'd like to find all the words in the set (an AND query) or any word in the set (an OR query). We don't recommend using OR queries unless the keywords are very unusual. For each query, you'll have the choice of searching Excite, AltaVista, Lycos, or Infoseek. (It doesn't appear that you can search all of them; you can only choose one to search.) After that you'll be given the option of monitoring five specific URLs for changes-that is, The Informant will take a look at these pages see if any of them have changed, and inform you if so.
Now, at the interval you specified, The Informant will find the top 10 Web pages that are most relevant to your keywords. If there is a new page in the top 10, or if any of the pages in the top 10 have changed, you'll get an e-mail. It'll also look at the five pages you specified so see if there are any changes.
Since The Informant checks out only the top 10 pages at each search engine, you won't get the comprehensive results that you'll get with TracerLock, but you have more search engine choices and you can monitor specific URLs. (And hey, they're both free, so there's nothing that says you can't use both engines.)
URL-Minder http://www.netmind.com/html/url-minder.html
URL-Minder doesn't specifically query search engines; instead, it tracks changes to particular pages. You can use this resource to check on competitor's pages, check on pages important to your industry, and so on. You give it your e-mail address, tell it the URLs to watch, and specify some extra information, such as whether you want URL-Minder to send you a copy of the new page.
Of course you can also use this system to track changes in the search engines for you. Enter a query on a search engine-like AltaVista-and click the Search button. After you get the results, you'll see a very strange-looking URL in the URL location box at the top of your browser. Let's do an example. Say you search for "acme electric" on .com domains. The search query would look like this:
+"acme electric" +domain:comThe URL in your browser's URL location box would look like this:
http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?pg=q&kl=XX&q=%2B%22acme+electric%22+%2Bdomain%3Acom
All you have to do is cut that URL out of the location box and paste it into the URL-Minder URL registration box. You can do this as many times as you like with as many different search queries as you like. URL-Minder supports an unlimited number of URLs to update. URL-Minder will, in effect, repeat your search for you periodically. It's not a perfect system, though. Since URL-Minder can check only the first page of results, it won't be as thorough as TracerLock. And unless you're very careful and do a very clear and specific search, you may end up with a lot of unimportant notifications. On the other hand, you can check many more query combinations using this method because you won't be restricted to just three.
---------------------------------------------------------------
What book did ZD Journal's Daily Buzz column describe as "an invaluable resource to better understand how the new 'networked economy' works"? What book did InfoWorld call "a pleasing mixture of practical technical advice and business guidance"?
"The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet." Learn how two kids in a basement beat MCI and Tower Records to build the world's largest online music store.
Visit http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
---------------------------------------------------------------
Drawing for a Free PC
This doesn't have a lot to do with setting up a Web site or promoting a product online ... except, perhaps that you might need a new computer. Dell Computer Corporation is giving away a prize of a custom desktop PC and a notebook PC, $15,000 worth. They're looking for the oldest PC in use in a small business. (This is the 25th anniversary of the first PC, apparently.)
Visit http://www.dell.com/smallbiz/oldestpc/ for more info.
And please, if any one of you wins, let me know!
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Top Floor Publishing now has three books in print:
For Poor Richard's Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%, 1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books you buy!
Book Reviewers Wanted
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters (electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If so, would you like to review one of the books I mentioned above?
Contact me at reviews@TopFloor.com. Include your full mailing address, the name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's contact information.
Reading Back Issues
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and search the archives -- you can find them at the following location: http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
-------------------------------------------------------------
(c) Copyright 1999, Top Floor Publishing
All Rights Reserved
-------------------------------------------------------------If you like this newsletter, PLEASE FORWARD IT to friends and colleagues!
Please retain this copyright and subscription information; you may want to remove your e-mail address from below.
It may be posted, in it's entirety or partially, to newsgroups or mailing lists, as long as the copyright and subscription information remains.
