Building a web site can be a great way to express yourself on the internet, promoting your own business or expanding your hobby. There are a multitude of free web site hosts such as Geocities which also have an online site builder and are great for personal web sites. For businesses, a more professional look gives much more authority to your site but can be expensive if you purchase the software needed to create a professional web site.

Starting with design, first select a graphics program to design the graphic elements of the site. Next, use a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor to put the graphic elements together and place content onto pages. The coding is usually performed by these editors. Publishing to the internet, especially if you are using a hosting solution, is done using an FTP client (File Transfer Protocol) and we have listed a selection of the most popular.

	Graphics Packages. Adobe Fireworks: Mainly aimed at web based graphics and available for both PC and Mac. Demo available. Adobe Flash: Still the only serious editor to create great flash based animations and sites. Requires a steep learning curve but the results are worth the effort. Available on PC and Mac. Demo available. Adobe Photoshop: Expensive but professional graphics solution used by all the main design houses. Available for the PC and Mac. Demo available. Ulead PhotoImpact: Exceptionally cheap alternative to Photoshop with a wealth of features and aimed at the web graphics market. PC only. Demo available.
	Editors. Adobe Dreamweaver: The main wysiwyg editor used by professionals with easy to use interface and a multitude of features. Available on PC and Mac. Demo available. Microsoft FrontPage: Part of the Office suite and available as a standalone. Extremely useful if you have a hosting solution that supports FrontPage Extensions. Available on PC only.
	FTP Clients. WS_FTP: One of the main FTP clients to upload files from your PC to the hosting account. PC only. FTP Captain: Available from the Apple library of software for uploading files from your Mac. Mac only.
	Useful Downloads. The programs shown above are only a small selection of those available, for more programs (some of which are free or shareware) visit: Download.com: A wealth of PC applications and programs. Apple Development: Perfect for Mac users to get various programs.

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