Tools to Create a Website For FREE

[Alan]

What about tools to create an email newsletter for free *Cough*

[bumfluff]

You'd basically use the same tools - just add an email client that lets you make html emails. Which is pretty much every major one out there now, but Mozilla Thunderbird is a good free one for starters

[lin robinson]

Let me add a few, if I might.

Those who want to crank out a few nice logos but not fool with installing GIMP can do use the same rendering engine free at Cool Type

Another very solid FTP tool I've used for a long time with no trouble is FileZilla (and yes it's from the Firefox people) Client (what you'd use to upload to your site) is cross-platform, server is Windows only.

The best way to make documents available for download is pdf, but Adobe pro is expensive. I've used CutePDF for some time and it works well, has no watermarking, and is free for personal and commercial use. You just select it as "printer" from Word for Windows and hit "Print" and it produces a clean PDF document.

Here's another powerful, useful online image optimizer. Dynamic Drive

[Alan]

Originally Posted by bumfluff

You'd basically use the same tools - just add an email client that lets you make html emails. Which is pretty much every major one out there now, but Mozilla Thunderbird is a good free one for starters

If you know all your users use the same email client that might work. Otherwise you run into problems. http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/...in_emai_2.html

[bumfluff]

Originally Posted by Alan

If you know all your users use the same email client that might work. Otherwise you run into problems. http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/...in_emai_2.html

Yup. Best way to get around that is if you have an opt-in email list, include an option for users to select plain text OR html emails.

[Alan]

Its not just plain text v html. Its Yahoo html v outlook html v outlook07 html v hotmail html etc. Each email client has their different requirements. It is why http://www.email-standards.org/ was set up.

[bumfluff]

Nice link, bookmarked that.

re the plain text emails tho, I meant it's a safe option. I haven't checked in any detail, but I think text emails show up fine on any client. Look a bit cruddy tho..

[harding125]

Hi,
Does any of this work with Linux?

Gary

[bumfluff]

I know The Gimp and Arachnophilia are available for Linux. The others I don't know offhand, but you can check the websites for more information.

[harding125]

Great. Thanks for that I'll have a look.

Gary