Indroduction

Hi, my name is Byron Levene and I have set up this blog to help teach HTML and CSS to fellow bloggers that may or may not have any previous exposure to the web markup languages that make up the internet.

I started learning HTML in the dark ages of the late 1990's when the internet was still reaching maturity, and I have been a blogger since 2004. I have studied both Graphic Design and Multimedia at tertiary level.

In this first post I will get you familiar with some of the terminology that will be used, and I'll start covering the hard stuff later on.

Web Markup Languages - What am I talking about?
Dont panic!. You dont need to be a computer wizard to learn the languages that are used online--and you probably know some already, even if you think you dont. There are a few languages used but here we are going to focus on two:

HTML

CSS

HTML
you may have encountered HTML already when posting to forums, when you put tags into posts to change the font to bold or italic?, well thats web markup at its most basic. There are only a limited amount of tags in the HTML language so designing in HTML alone may not give you the options you may want--so once you add the power of CSS to the mix then you can start buliding solid web sites without the need for expencive training or software(and maybe even start a new career path?).

CSS
CSS, or Cascading style sheets add more design options to the HTML. CSS are linked to in the HTML code (in the head section) and they can pre-define elements in the HTML document to save time typing out the same tags over and over again. But added to this is that multiple style sheets can link to the same HTML so you can put layer upon layer of sheets to achive some amazing results!.

Other languages
There are other languages and technologys that may be mentioned here but not covered in depth. In these cases I will try to find links to apropriate tutorials to save you from any major headches. One language that will be mentioned here is XML--but dont fear XML is so similar to HTML that once you know one you know the other. (infact XML is easyer to learn)

Resources
I will try and keep a nice list of up to date links that will be usful to you, so please check back regularly. and if you have any questions then please ask.