|
Starting
a multimedia consultancy, what do I
need?
Nov
22, 1999
|
|
Q:
As you are the guru I thought there is no better
place to go than here.
If
I were to start my own small multimedia consultancy
that which deals with the creation of web pages for
other small companies in my surrounding area, what
would I need to do it?
Regards
L. C.
A:
There's a lot of possible answers to that question,
and without knowing what (if any) software and
hardware experience you have, I'll make some
sweeping generalizations:
Hardware:
Macintosh or PC, it doesn't really matter which.
Just remember that the same web page can look
different on different computers, and in different
browsers. So you should always test your pages in
Internet Explorer and Netscape on both platforms if
you can. Also, make sure you have enough RAM to run
this software satisfactorily; you should have at
least 64MB so you can run a web browser and an HTML
editor without having major performance
problems.
A
flatbed scanner will be very useful for scanning in
logos, pictures, etc. You can get very good ones
for not much more than $100.
High-speed
net connection: Get the fastest modem you can
afford (that your ISP supports!)
Depending
upon your clients, you might want to have a Zip
drive in case they have stuff that they will
provide on those format disks. If the clients
aren't computer savy this won't be a
problem.
Software:
You should get some kind of WYSIWYG HTML
editor. This will make life much easier for you. I
would recommend looking at Macromedia's
Dreamweaver, Microsoft's FrontPage
and Adobe's GoLive. I know that Macromedia
has a trial version you can download. There are
many other such products (you might want to serach
some computer magazines for reviews.)
Image
editing application: Again there are lots of
programs out there, but one program that is very
good is Macromedia Fireworks. It may take a
little time to learn, but it can be very good for
creating complex images, and has some nice options
for previewing a graphic at diferent jpeg
compression levels.
Alternatively,
there are also a lot of simple paint applications
that you can use to make web graphics (anything
that will create a gif and jpeg file will get you
going.)
That's
really all you need to get going. After that, you
might want to look into digital cameras, other
graphics software, and maybe get into more complex
web programming and development work, but that's
for later.
Got
a question? Send them to "Ask
the Guru"
|
