If you want to get work creating websites, here's a way to start off. W3Schools is offering free online tutorials in the current languages used to create Internet sites. For $59 you can then take a supervised test to get your HTML Developer Certificate.

The certification requires that you know how to use HTML, XHTML and CSS to create websites. HTML is the foundation language used in website creation. HTML is used to format text, create hyperlinks, tables, lists, forms, display images and other site features. XHTML is the next generation of HTML. CSS is used to control the layout of web pages using a single template.

Once you have taken the tutorials and practiced using your knowledge you can then take the W3 Schools exam. The exam can be taken over the Internet, at any time and from any location. All exams must be supervised by a person selected by the exam candidate. You will have 70 minutes to complete 70 multiple choice questions. Candidates must have 75 percent correct answers to pass the exam and become certified. Candidates who get 95 percent of the answers right will get an "Excellency Degree" notation added to their certificate.

If you achieve certification status, W3Schools will send you an HTML Developer Certificate. The document will contain your personal data acknowledging your status as a Certified HTML Developer along with the name and title of your supervisor. The key is to make sure that your supervisor has the necessary qualifications and the title to give your certificate credibility.

Are there any IT specialists out there willing to volunteer as supervisors for any Bermudians who might want to get certified? Let me know. I won't publish your name but I'll certainly pass along to you any candidates who might need supervision but don't know someone who is qualified and willing to sit though the exam with them.

The exam costs $59, but even if you don't want to take it, you can at least learn the basics of any type of scripting or programming language at the W3Schools site (www.w3schools.com). The site has a treasure load of very clear tutorials on languages, from JavaScript to Flash. It also has tutorials on the general principles of web building, browsers and graphics and it's all free.

For the fifth year in a row I was a screener for the online journalism awards hosted by the Online News Association. My job, along with 70 other screeners was to wade through 500 entries this year to pick out the top five to ten entries in each of the 16 category of the awards. The finalists were then chosen by a panel of editors. The winners will be announced on November 13 in Los Angeles.

Here are my picks from the list of finalists so you can add these sites to your news links: BBC News Online (www.bbc.co.uk/news); CNN.com (www.cnn.com); Wall Street Journal Online (online.wsj.com); WashingtonPost.com (www.washingtonpost.com) and the Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org).

One site that didn't make the final cut, but which I feel should have, is the Digital Journalist Magazine.

While the site is run entirely by photojournalists on a voluntary basis, it is sharp and professional and gives the real-low down on how a photojournalist got specific photographs of current news events.

The October issue features a photographic album of Eddie Adams' photos. You might not remember the name but you'll remember the photographs. One of his most famous is of the street execution of a Vietcong solder in 1968. It was a poignant moment for me when I received the list of finalists via e-mail last week.

It reminded me of what OffshoreOn, the online publication I edited for four years, could have achieved.

ISI Publications and I decided to close down OffshoreOn last week. We just could not make enough money to keep the newsletter alive, hire more reporters and become self-sustaining. There are lots of reasons why it didn't survive, some much too detailed to go into here. Let's just say that after four years of being a slave to the publication, I feel a real weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Despite the regrets starting a publication from scratch and keeping it going was a valuable lesson for me.

Now is the time for me to move on to better and greater things, as they say. I just don't know what right now. Anyone have any ideas? Maybe now l can get around to writing all those articles on travels in wine country I've been promising a number of editors!

For now I'll just suffer from "web withdrawal", like the rest of those people who spend a substantial amount of their time online. A survey by Yahoo! found that about half of US Internet users say they could not go without the web for more than two weeks, with many suffering 'withdrawal' symptoms while offline.

The "Internet Deprivation Study" was released by Yahoo and media group OMD. It found that many of those who use the Internet often found that the tools and services they use online were firmly ingrained in their daily lives.

Those surveyed often forgot or lost the desire to use old fashioned tools like the phone book, newspapers and telephone-based customer service, the report said. Withdrawal is that feeling you get a dinner parties when someone mentions a disputed fact and you feel that urgent desire to pipe up: "No worry. I just go check it up on the Internet".

Contact Ahmed at editor@offshoreon.com