Build Your Place in Cyberspace

Step 9: Arrange your furniture.

In the days that followed my launch, I uploaded page after page, magazine article after magazine article, onto my site. And I soon found it difficult to get a good overview of how the longer articles were laying out. I needed another software tool, one that would let me quickly skim articles that were already formatted for Web publishing and view how each new page was affecting the entire site. Trellix 1.0 turned out to be the solution.

Trellix was written by Dan Bricklin, who helped launch the PC revolution by creating the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc, in 1979. His latest software invention reinvents the electronic document. Trellix gives documents an organizational structure like that of a Web site. It lets you build and organize multiple-page documents and link them to one another.

You can write directly in Trellix or import a lengthy Word document into it, and then use the program to create an HTML document. A graphical map on each page shows how all the other pages are connected. You can then break the document into smaller, easily digestible pages. As you skim through the map, you can jump from one page to another with a single mouse click.

I found Trellix's map to be a tremendous help. By glancing at the layout of my longer articles, I realized that I should add introductory and summary pages - which the articles didn't need when they ran in magazines. But Trellix showed how summary pages would be a boon to Web cruisers, who otherwise must scroll though interminably long pages.

Coordinates: $99. Trellix Corp., www.trellix.com

Step 10: Never stop adding those finishing touches.

I've accomplished all that I set out to do: I built a virtual storehouse of my articles, and I provided a convenient way for readers and television viewers to dish out feedback. But I take no great pride in reporting that I've been sucked into the world of Java junkies, those Web addicts who spend hours looking for new multimedia gimmicks to add to their sites. Indeed, I've spent many a late-night hour adding spit and polish to j-q.com. After all, launching a Web site is just the first step. The construction process never really ends.

Contributing editor John R. Quain www.j-q.com appears regularly on CBS News's "Up to the Minute" and can be seen on CNBC's "The Edge." He lives in New York City.