ROVIN’
AND RAVIN’ WITH MIKE
Copyright © 2004, 2002, 2000 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
Brought to you by Peanut.org
Who
Wants to Be a Web-master?
(In this article, web addresses in green are not functional links.
They are given just for illustration.)
Nowadays, you can’t escape the “dot com” world, on television, in magazines and newspapers, even on billboards, and you may be tempted to jump on the Internet bandwagon yourself. It is much cheaper and simpler than many people imagine. Join me as I rove through all the things you need to set yourself up as your own web-master (or mistress) and rave about all the free resources available to you.
First of all, you need some space on the Internet, and that’s some real
estate that you can get a good bit more cheaply than you can buy a bridge in
Brooklyn. In fact, there are many
ways that you can get web space for free.
Some such as
Geocities
and Angelfire
are quite well known
by now, providing free web space in exchange for
displaying advertising on your page. But,
for a wide range of other free web space options, check
After you read the terms of use of these companies,
you may want to pay someone to host your site.
You can find a variety of reasonably priced options online.
Before
I go any further, let me emphasize that I am providing these web sites for your
reference; neither Peanut.org nor I can vouch for the services provided by any
of the companies which I mention.
Now, you are ready for a domain name, that is the familiar “www-dot-something-com” address for an Internet site. How do you start? First, go here to check for the availability of the name that you want at WhoIs.net
You may be surprised at the options available to
you, but you may also be surprised that I cannot register www.rovin’&ravin’.com,
because apostrophes and ampersands are not allowed.
But, when you select a domain name, there are other considerations, based
on the psychology of people interacting with the Internet.
Recently, for example, I helped a friend, a Vietnam
veteran who is now speaking to high school students about his experiences, set
up a website to go along with his presentations.
His name is Kenneth Leland, and so, he wanted www.kenleland.com.
That was already taken, but he could have had
www.kenleland.net
or www.kenleland.org.
I suggested that he take www.kennethleland.com,
which was available. Usually,
shorter domain names are better, but “dot com” addresses seem to be a little
more impressive.
The price of registering a domain name varies widely. Usually, your
hosting company will give you a package deal for your name and hosting
together. Two especially valuable services for low-budget
web-masters to look out for are e-mail forwarding and web forwarding.
E-mail forwarding allows you to receive e-mail in your "home"
e-mail box addressed to a name at your domain.
You can't send e-mail from your domain name address, because the
received e-mail is forwarded to your real e-mail address.
Let’s say I register a domain, www.worthcountywriters.com.
Then, on my web site, I can include such e-mail
addresses as—
publicrelations@worthcountywriters.com
careeropportunities@worthcountrywriters.com
investorinfo@worthcountywriters.com
mike@worthcountrywriters.com
E-mail
sent to any of these addresses canl be forwarded to the same box.
I can build my website on free space from Angelfire,
Geocities, Peanut or any other provider, so that, in fact, there is no such page
as one with the URL http://www.worthcountywriters.com.
Instead, there would be the long, sometimes awkward URL such as www.geocities.com/dinomichael/writers.html.
With web
forwarding, however, the registered domain name would take you to the
appropriate place.
This week, we looked at finding web space, free or otherwise,
and registering a domain name.
Keep your feet dry, but keep them rovin’ through
our neighbors’ sites, and keep your heart full of noble thoughts with which to
enrich your new home on the Internet.
Find more articles about creating your own website.
Rove to the Rovin' and Ravin' opening page.