To add color to your web page using HTML, the most reliable method is using hex or hexadecimal codes. Each color is represented by a 6 digit hexadecimal number which is made up of 16 possible digits: 0 to 9 and A to F. You could also use the name of the color (eg – “Red” or “#FF0000” give the same result) but for some reason, most people (myself included) prefer the precision of gobbledegook to plain English. The following table features the 216 “web-safe” colors that will work on a 256 color system (which is actually rare these days but it covers all bases).

Interactivity is what makes the web such a powerful medium and can be one of the most effective ways of engaging your visitors. Call it a form of online ‘bonding’. Just as importantly, having your visitors contribute is an ideal way to produce new content on a regular basis. Here are some ideas on how to make your website more interactive. I illustrate some of the ideas with real-life examples I’ve used in my cartoon website, Sev Wide Web.

Here are some of the mistakes that make your web page hard to read:

Low Contrast

Grey text on white background may look cool (I used it once till my readers complained) but your visitors will be squinting by the second paragraph (or worse, leaving your site). Go for high contrast to ensure your text is as readable as possible. Black text on a white background provides the best readability. White text on black is the next best option.

Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URL’s are very common today with the widespread use of content management systems (CMS).

These are URL’s that looks like http://www.website.com/about as opposed to the conventional http://www.website.com/about.html.

A SEF URL in a CMS would replace something like <http://www.website.com?id=34>.

The advantages of SEF over conventional URL’s is that they are shorter and easier to send to people, and they also increase the security of a web site by hiding components are being used on a page. In its webmaster guidelines, Google recommends caution in using dynamic web pages:

.htaccess files (or “distributed configuration files”) provide a way to make configuration changes on a per-directory basis. A file, containing one or more configuration directives, is placed in a particular document directory, and the directives apply to that directory, and all subdirectories thereof.

Step by Step

For this to work successfully you will have to be logged in as root or using one of the sudo or su options.

Step 1:

We will need to create a folder that will have to be authenticated. Since the default location in Apache is /var/www/html we will create it here. You will do this by using the mkdir command.