Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
North America, and almost all businesses and governments, are hooked to
the World Wide Web. We take e-mail for granted, as well as the ability to
have instant access to all kinds of information, from the money in our bank
account to breaking world news. But how does it all work?
Servers, or computers that store the data, are centrally located mega-
computers at businesses, ranging from your local phone company to private
organizations. Big corporations and government agencies maintain in-house
servers, while the rest of us rely on other companies to host our servers. There
are dozens of these companies, and you can pay to host Web pages with them,
but to go with that option, you need to have some familiarity with HTML and
CSS (cascading style sheets, which tells the Web browser how a page should
look, from the fonts that are used to the color scheme), or you need to hire a
Web designer to develop your page.
Another approach is to use a company that acts as a host and provides
templates, so you don't have to actually know the languages to create the Web
site. There are many of these companies to choose from, but one that works
specifi cally with small-scale farmers is
www.smallfarmcentral.com
.
These com-
panies charge monthly fees that are a bit more expensive than keeping your
site on a hosting company's server, but their system is easier to use, so you
have to balance the trade-offs.
The Blogosphere
Around 2002, the Web took another giant leap with the development of
interactive Web sites, and “blogs” were off and running. A blog allows you to
regularly update readers on what's going on around your farm or what is hap-
pening in the world that you care about. (My agricultural blog, for example, is
at
http://rurbanramblings.com
.) But readers of blogs can also interact with you
by sharing comments. Blogs can be set up on your own server and custom-
ized, or they can be established on one of the
free
services that make it quick
and easy to set up a page using templates. Entries in a blog can be categorized
and archived, making this a great way to get started letting your audience
know about your farm. (See Resources, page 412, for some other farm Web
sites and blogs that I like.)
Wool is truly a remarkable substance! It's very warm, and it both repels water
and wicks away perspiration. It's strong yet elastic, which means it can be
spun into a variety of yarns, from very fi ne to bulky.
