Internet fashions now dictate that even personal websites should contain more formatting than simply underlining your name and adding clipart. Microsoft FrontPage 2003 is a program that helps you get started, even if you have no previous web-design experience.

There are lots of templates included and while many are business-orientated, they still offer a useful starting point. You can also use one of 80 customisable 'themes' that provide the basics but can be tweaked to your liking.

Depending on your level of expertise, you can decide how technical you want to get while creating your site. FrontPage can work in Design mode, which looks like a Word document, or in 'Split' mode, which displays the HTML code as well. The latter is helpful if you want to learn more about writing the code for web pages. You can preview your site in Internet Explorer and use the timer function to display how long the page will take to load.

One particularly useful tool is the photo album-creation wizard. You can use this to create a page containing thumbnails of your photo collection, which link to the full-sized images. There's also a basic editing kit to resize and crop your images.

Once your site is created, FrontPage can check it for things that might cause problems, such as incorrect links. The software will also copy the files onto your host server and ensure all the links are updated. Before you buy FrontPage it is very important to check that the company you want to host your website is compatible with the software. If not, some parts of your website will not work properly.

If you are serious about producing a good website, FrontPage is worth considering, as long as your service provider supports all of the functions.

Contact: Microsoft 0870 6010 100
www.microsoft.co.uk