I like to code HTML. It relaxes me.

But I have a confession: I’m not very good at it. So this site is going to be about testing my latest HTML. I invite you to learn along with me! But first you need to meet the power behind my creations:

His name is Paul O’Brien and he posts to the forums at Sitepoint.com. Without Paul and the wonderful moderators and members of Sitepoint none of what you see here would be possible. Paul knows more about HTML than any person I have ever met in my life. If you’re interested in learning HTML Sitepoint could be a valuable resource for you so check it out. Registration is FREE!

I don’t have access to a desktop computer at the present time so I do all of my coding on an Android SmartPhone. There are a few indispensable tools I keep at my disposal to write HTML and I’d like to share them with you. In addition to Sitepoint for help in coding (anything) I test my code on the Android browser Pure Browser. This browser has a distinct advantage over other browsers in that you can open HTML files “locally.” By locally I mean you can open your HTML files directly from within any file manager — I recommend Free X-Plore — that has an “OPEN WITH” command, with no need for an internet connection! Only use Pure Browser for testing your code, not for daily browsing: Chrome doesn’t like it and you may get security errors if you use it for browsing. Still, you’re going to need to see what your code actually looks like so check out Pure Browser. You can perform a long (full page) screenshot of your page output, and even rip it to a .PDF. A free, powerful little browser.

As important, you’ll need a text editor that is robust enough to handle coding. I recommend the Android App Quick Edit Pro. Get the license — it’s about $4.00 and well worth it to be rid of the ads that will bombard you in the free version. What sets QE Pro apart is their engineering of the text SELECT function. You’ll come to realize how badly other apps handle this vital aspect of text editing and appreciate the developer’s engineering of a small “gutter” in your left margin. Trust me, this one innovation is worth five times the price of the license because it makes the selection of text a comfortable transaction instead of the nail-biting ordeal it usually is for large-handed folk like me struggling with the keyboard of a SmartPhone! Quick Edit Pro has a generous undo button, line numbering, themes, and even a Preview of how your page will look!

No discussion about coding on a SmartPhone can be complete without mentioning the W3 Validator. When you’re coding on a SmartPhone you are coding in an extremely volatile environment. Just lightly brushing the phone can insert characters that will break the page. So before you consider your page “Final” make a pit stop at the Validator and run your code through their error-checking engine. You can choose to just paste in your code; nothing could be easier! You’d be amazed at how many errors fly right under your radar and you’ll be more confident in uploading your pages that all errors have been resolved. I error check my code frequently — sometimes 10-20 times in a day!

Finally, a word about GRAPHICS. You have a generous 15GB of storage with GOOGLE PHOTOS and Google made it impossible to link any of these assets to a website. This is why programmers created LABNOL: a free site for converting website assets uploaded to Google Photos into LINKABLE images, graphics and photos. Follow the easy instructions and see all your images — large and small — appear in your HTML pages just as if you were paying for their hosting!

IMPORTANT! The CSS property for wrapping text around images — shape-outside — will not work on free servers such as Google Photos and Flikr even if you have converted the images to clickable links. Both the image and its HTML file must reside in the same folder on a paid hosting server or a private/free server such as Nekoweb (which gives you 500 MB free space). Reserve your limited storage space for your shape-outside pages which have to be there, and use Google Photos for all your other images. Meet “Lucy” at