The 'net is full of X-Files pages. Heck, you're at one right now. And I consider myself a person who takes web-publishing seriously. I am anal about my HTML-tags. Everything has to be perfect. I spend countless hours working on my web-pages. But don't we all?

Everyone who has ever made a web-page will probably agree with me when I say that HTML is, in fact, quite simple. When I started to learn it, I was amused at how easy it was. I had been under the impression that it was, along with learning Japanese something I'd never do. As it turns out, I was wrong. But outside from knowing all the HTML-tags, you need a bit of an artistic eye and some common sense when creating your own home on the web. This essay is for those who A: lack common sense or B: are not too educated about the do's and the dont's of this artform.

There are three things I can name that I look for in a web page. First, when I go to the page, it has to be easy to load. Everyone doesn't have state-of-the-art equipment, or ISDN for that matter. Big java-applet's on the main page tend to spoil the mood BIG time. Go easy on the graphics you use. I just recently came across a page that had a 81k background picture! I didn't stay on that page long enough for that entire page to load.

Second, there is good content. This doesn't necessarily mean alot of content, since sometimes just one single page can hold a very good entertainment value. Like this! Heh, heh.. well, seriously, if you have alot of stuff on your page, you could consider making a site index, or creating sub-directories. Also, if you use copyrighted material, such as image, sound etc., link to the ORIGINAL source or copyright holder, or atleast mention their names. This might save you from lawsuits.

Third, and I can't address this enough, is the use of images. If you want the people who visit you to come back to your site, don't make the main page too heavy to load. This is a major put-off for people with slower connections. Those animated GIF's are cool as hell, and heavy to load. And another thing, try using only GIF's and JPG's. [For those who don't know, these are image file formats.] Some browsers support other formats as well, but some don't. Broken images uglify your site in a big way.