CoffeeCup - HTML Editor, Flash & Web Design Software

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An Introduction and History of CoffeeCup

My name is Nicholas Longo and I am the CEO of CoffeeCup Software. I started CoffeeCup in 1996 from a real Coffeehouse I owned called The Raven and The Sparrow Gourmet Cafe. I added Free Internet access to the Coffeehouse in 1995 which was very new at the time. Looking back I created one of the first Internet Cafes but I had other motives to do it besides just being tech savvy. I thought if I could get the business travelers that come to Corpus Christi Texas (our hometown) to check their e-mail and surf this new thing called the World Wide Web they would buy Cappuccino and Espresso and sit around all day spending money and drinking coffee. Little did I know that things would move quickly from there. I created our first Website for the Coffee house using Notepad because there was no real software at the time to create Websites. Once people started coming in to use the Internet, we received news stories in local TV News and newspapers. Now it was about the Internet, not the Coffee, and the most asked question was 'How do I create a Website?'

That's when I started becoming a Webmaster for money. I charged $500 to $1000 to create local business Websites and had plenty of business doing this because we were known for having the first commercial Website in Corpus Christi. You probably have heard necessity is the mother of invention, and it is absolutely true. It was a real pain to create Websites without good software and in one sentence CoffeeCup Software was born. The sentence was simple and the idea would grow well beyond my expectations. After being overwhelmed by doing everything by hand I said out loud "I should make software so people can make their own Websites". It just didn't feel right charging people $1000 to make a Website if they could do it themselves cheaper and easier. It's funny how your whole life can change by saying one thing. I then took this idea to a regular Coffeehouse customer that I knew programmed software. We played with the first version of the CoffeeCup HTML Editor for 3 months before releasing it. Once it was available for download I never thought about selling it until a user e-mailed and told me that I could charge money for it. He explained how trial software works. You let people use the software for 30 days for free and then after the 30 days they pay for the software if they want to continue to use it. Very cool idea.

I charged $20 for the first HTML Editor and took orders by phone written on sales receipts because eCommerce didn't really exist at the time. Since we didn't have a credit card machine in the Coffeehouse we just jotted down credit card info and sent users the software. Once I got a Merchant account and could take credit cards I looked at all the sales I had collected. They were on a little board with a big nail stuck through them. There were so many it was a thick stack like a phone book. After processing almost $20,000 in orders by hand I knew what I would be doing from here on out. I would make more software and services to help others create Websites. 4 months after releasing the CoffeeCup HTML Editor I closed the Coffeehouse for good.

The reason I finally decided to get this book done was simply out of necessity to help CoffeeCup Software users. Since 1996 we have had over 11 million people use our Web Design software. We make a very easy to use HTML Editor and 20 other programs but most of our daily work at CoffeeCup is about supporting some misguided people who do not understand the fundamentals. They purchase a computer and want a Website the same day.

It doesn't and shouldn't work that way. "You don't even understand Windows yet and now you are making an ugly Website !"
What are you thinking? If you rush your Website you will just embarrass yourself or your business. Anyone can create a great Website. If you want to be ordinary put this book down now because all Websites are not created equal.

You need to know the basics of creating a Website and you should know a lot more if you want a really nice Website. It's not just going to happen out of thin air. There are a lot tools out there that will make it easier though (like ours) but it is important to remember that the best Websites are made with a very good knowledge of HTML. A real Webmaster can write HTML code blindfolded and with something as simple as Notepad.
(and even better with our software)

This book is not a sales pitch for our software either. We make a lot of software programs and I only mention 5 in this book. What I wanted to do here was to help beginners and intermediate Webmasters get better so they can create a Website better than ours. It's a very good test, and if you can create a Website like ours then our job at CoffeeCup is truly complete. If you would like to use some of our software to do make your Website that's great. You can download our trial software from http://www.coffeecup.com

Now I try to cover a lot in this book but being a Webmaster takes practice too. The biggest secret that I pass on to people is actually very simple and is the fastest way to learn HTML and other tips and tricks. Just 'Right-
Click' a Web Page in your browser and 'View Source'. You can also save any Web page to your hard drive to open in an HTML Editor by going to 'File' and then 'Save As' in the top toolbar of your browser. Now you have some power. Visit a very popular Website or one that you personally like a lot. Save the page to your hard drive. Now in Notepad or the CoffeeCup HTML Editor open that HTML document. You now have the source code that makes that page look so good or navigate so well. All you have to do is fiddle with the code and text on the page and save it. If you open the page in a browser you will see the changes you have made. You can play with it all you want, and if you mess it up, who cares? Just save the page again and start over. I also show you the source code of over 10 popular Websites in this book so you can understand what is good and/or bad about them. This 'deconstruction' is just like viewing the source in your browser with me as your guide with a critic's commentary.

Now don't go copying other peoples hard work, just use these pages as a guideline of what you would like to accomplish for your own Website. This is exactly how I learned and now it's odd that I can even write a book about it and more so make software that creates Websites. The Web is indeed a very interesting place.

HTML is just a form of the English language. What a lot of people think is that the code is confusing because it looks like crazy computer code. This is not true. It is actually very simple text that is written in English. One example I like to give is:

<center> Hi There </center>

Guess what happens to the words 'Hi There' on the page? If you say anything else than "It centers it on the page." I already want you to take a 5 minute break and come back to read the next paragraph later. It is really that easy, you just have to take your time and you will get it. Even the hard stuff. There is an enlightening, I promise you. All of my experience shows that a light will come on in your head about 2 weeks into the learning process. Then you will be hard to stop and you will take this book and put it on a shelf and say to yourself; "I can't believe I ever bought that."

Don't make the Web ugly and have fun !

Nick-

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