When I was an art student back in the late nineties, the internet was becoming part of aour everyday life. But to do graphics on the computer you needed an expensive Apple computer. My university had a special room where you had to swipe an ID card to enter. I took on multimedia for extra credit and I had no prior experience using computers. All the other students were graphic design and familar with computers and I had a short temper with technology. Over the years computers have become cheaper and you don't to buy Apple to do graphics, it is all about software. So which software do you need?

To build this page; to create images such as symbols and buttons you will need Adobe Illustrator to create the shapes and Photoshop for rendering.

The main central section is using Fireworks, this software is fantastic I use for my main pages it creates rollovers to show different images but in the same frame.

The left handside menu uses Flash, not just it allows me to use animation but for links as well. Lets say you have one hundred pages and you decided to update and add a new section to your site. If you use flash all you have to do is update that flash file. If you use text then you will have to go and open up and edit all one hundred pages.

Finally to put all together you will need Dreamweaver, this is for making HTML pages. These softwares come in packages and I am at this moment of writing using really old software and you don't to replace it all the time.