Photo album

The vast majority of images published on the WWW, also known as the World Wide Web, are in three file formats: .gif, .jpeg, or, less commonly, .png. Why, one might ask, do you need to know this? But why - the days of packages with printed photographs of a family trip to the Black Sea, showing which you torment your friends during a party, are becoming a thing of the past. More and more people are buying digital cameras, more and more Internet users are creating their family photo albums directly on WWW sites (of course, you can do this on your computer drive - but then how can you make your friends and relatives happy with them?). There are plenty of places where you can post photos - any provider will provide you with access and a place for your home page. There are much more convenient tools that do not require any skills in working with HTML, FTP and other not very interesting things - on such sites you just need to register and get at your disposal quite powerful tools for creating online albums with ready-made templates, ready-made navigation, etc. ( for example, www.base.ru). Let us immediately warn you that this is not all. If you try to upload photos in their original size to such an album, then it is possible that friends and acquaintances invited to a virtual viewing will have to wait for hours for them to load. What should you do - should you really learn Photoshop or Corel Draw by paying a tidy sum for these programs? If you search hard enough, you can easily find a free analogue of almost any paid program on the Internet. For example, at the address www.websitegarage.com you can use a free online utility to optimize the images on your site (or on your local drive). However, Websitegarage has recently ceased to be an independent company, moved to websitegarage.netscape.com , and now, in order to use it, you need to go through the most tedious registration procedure, first on Netcenter.Com, and then on the site itself. If you search even more carefully, the free program may turn out to be very convenient and will not require registration. The online program at Giftools.Com compresses any image quickly and efficiently, and does not ask for anything in return. Now you can tell your friends and family about your online album. They will then be able to say with a pure heart that they came in and examined everything very carefully - who will check them?

March 20, 2000