Welcome to the Homepage-Building-Help !!
I will, on this page, try to show you how easy it can be to create a personal homepage, and what you have to watch for. If you follow this step-by-step, I can promise you that you've got a homepage within a week or two!
INDEX
First of all, you have to know what your website should contain. When you know the content, it's good to sketch up on a paper how the website should look like ( with or without frames, colors, graphics, etc.). Make a couple of sketches a pick the one that suits you best!
The next step is to get a couple of almost necessary programs. It's programs that can be very useful when creating a website. The programs I'm talking about is Paint Shop Pro 4.12 (shareware) and Microsoft FrontPage Express 2.0.2.1118 or Claris HomePage 1.0 or any other WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) based HomePageBuilder. The WYSIWYG helps you so that you don't have to have experience in HTML-programing. Here's a short description of the programs.
Paint Shop Pro 4 (shareware version) - If you want to add some nice pictures or maybe a self-made background to your homepage, this is a very good program. It can handle almost any format. You can find it by http://www.jasc.com/pspdl.html ! Other graphic-programs are Tek Gradator (for nice backgrounds), Animagic (for animated pictures).
Microsoft FrontPage Express - This is a free and simplyfied version of the powerful Microsoft FrontPage. Anyone can use this. You can download it by http://www.microsoft.com
Claris HomePage - This is little more powerful than the FrontPage but it demands a little more training. You can download it by http://www.claris.com/
The second step is to create the website. An important thing to think of is the design of the website. For instance, if you want to have a light background-colour you should have a dark text-colour and vice versa.
Another thing to think of is the frames. I prefer websites without frames. Why?, well, it doesn't take so long time to download them, and it can very easy be a fine mess of the whole site when using too many frames! (I know that from my own experience!)
A very important thing is the navigation possibilties. You can make a very easy "navigation field" as I have done at this page (see bottom of page). You can also use frames for making a "navigation-bar" (to the left or at the top). You should always have a link back to the main or index page, on every of your pages!
Remember ! If you don't have a WYSIWYG-editor, it can be difficult to build a page with frames!
Things to remeber when creating a HTMl-document. If you never before have created HTML-documents, then remember this;
If you put a <tag> in the document you also have to put an end of the tag ( </tag> ). For instance, if you want to create a table in the document the first thing to put in is:
<table border="?" bordercolordark="?" bordercolorlight="?"> WRITE THE CONTENT HERE </table>Where the ? is you should put first, the thickness of the table-border, second and third, a colour-number. (#000000 is black and #FFFFFF is white)
Now when you've created your homepage you have to find someone that can host your site. Remember that the host have to suit you and not vice versa ! If you need CGI-script you should of course choose a host who has that support, if you want to create your own CGI-script choose a host who gives you access to the CGI-folder (I don't think there are any FREE website hosts who gives you access to the CGI-folder !). Below I have a list over some mailservers and website hosts. I have also a more detailed list over website hosts.
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Click here to see a more detailed list over website hosts!
Follow the steps below to get a homepage!
Get yourself an email-inbox. Even if you allready have an inbox it's good to have an inbox for the homepage (comments from the readers etc.). This is how you do!
i. First you have to find a host for your email-inbox. I can recommend Hotmail (www.hotmail.com) because it's fast and it has a good layout.When you're at the Hotmail main page, click the "sign-up" button. Then you only have to fill out a form, and submit it.When you later have a homepage you can put your email address at the bottom of the page ([email protected]) so that the readers can write you their comments or suggestions.
ii. Now I recommend you to pay a visit to Bigfoot (www.bigfoot.com). Why?, well Bigfoot can help you so that you don't get any spamming in your inbox. Just join Bigfoot through clicking the "join" button, fill out the form and submit it. Now you probably want to now how to setup that homepage! Continue following the steps below!
First you have to find a host for your page. I strongly recommend Fortune City (www.fortunecity.com). They give you 6 megs of webspace!! This is how to join Fortune City
i. First go to the FC's front page. At the front page you can click a "join" button, you will be able to choose a subject that suits you and FC will put you in the right neighbourhood, for instance if you are a computer freek, your neighbourhood is the Skyscraper Complex. The you will have to fill out a form and submit it. FC will then send you an email with useful information about Fortune City.
ii. Editing your website. I strongly recommend you to first create your whole website on your harddrive, and then upload it to the host. The alternative by FC is to create the website with the FC filemanager. When you upload the files I recommend to use the FC uploading utility. The alternative is WS_FTP (win3.x) or FTP explorer (win9.x) for PC and Fetch 3.0e for Macintosh.
iii. Finishing up the page. When you have uploaded the site to the host, you should check it out. There is always something that you aren't satisfied with.When changing the HTML in the site you should use the hosts filemanager.
Other things.
ALWAYS REMEMBER ALL THE USERNAMES AND PASSWORDS YOU WILL BE GIVEN
Check out diferent mailservers and website hosts. Pick the one that suits you !
I would be happy if you will put up a link on your page to PENTAGON, so that the needy can have the help they need !
If you need help with the HTML, then visit this site: http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/vista/9997/html.html !
I wish you good luck with your homepage building !
If you have any questions about this subject please mail them to me. I hope that I have an answer.
Soon you will see these new things here:
More HTML-hints
Glossary of the Web - If you want to know what all those words mean, then come back to PENTAGON next week.
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