ROVIN’ AND RAVIN’ WITH MIKE
Copyright © 2004, 2002, 2000 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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Who
Still Wants to Be a Web-master?
Now, we are ready to look at ways to create pages for your own little corner of cyberspace, once you’ve found it, and ways to send (upload) them to your site. We’re not going to get very technical, but in case I start raving with some words that you aren’t familiar with, here are a couple of good glossaries of “net-speak.” For a good, basic vocabulary, look at the one offered by EarthLink, while Webopedia is as good as it claims it is.
We all need some sort of program to create our web pages in HTML (HyperText Markup Language), which is a set of instructions given to your browser, the program you use to view Internet sites, either Internet Explorer or Netscape. You can see these instructions (with Internet Explorer) by clicking on View in the toolbar at the top of the page and then on Source—the source code behind the page. Go ahead, and give it a try.
How do you write HTML? Well, most of us do not. We use a program that does the dirty work for us. I am creating this page with Microsoft’s FrontPage, perhaps the best-known program for generating web pages. If you are using Geocities, Angelfire, Earthlink, or other such sites, you can use their online editors. The disadvantage of these is that you have to work online. There are many programs, however, that you can download for free to develop your pages offline. AOL had a very good editing program called AOLPress. Although you can no longer get it from AOL, the program (and some useful tutorials) are available at various places online. Start here. Another free program which you can download with lots of information and some intriguing reflections on “careware” is Arachnophilia.
Microsoft distributes for free its FrontPage Express, a limited version of FrontPage. If you have Windows, you may already have this installed on your computer. But, I suggest you look at this FrontPage Express tutorial first.
You can download for free Note Tab Light, which, like FrontPage Express, is a reduced version of a program that you can buy.
Once you create your pages, you need some way to get them to your web space. The bad news is that you need to learn another abbreviation, FTP (File Transfer Protocal); the good news is that you can download the necessary program for free. Again, I’m going to give you a choice of free programs and a great tutorial. It seems the most commonly used FTP program is WS_FTP, which you can buy, or which you can download for free for educational and home use from this excellent site.
Enter “WS_FTP” in the search (be sure to underline the space, but do not include the quotation marks). While you are at this site, look at other good things you can get for free, including CoffeeCup software. Two other free FTP programs you can download are FTP Explorer and FTP Voyager.
Now that you have an FTP program, how about “Getting Started with FTP”? Enter that phrase in Google for a variety of good articles.
If you use Microsoft’s FrontPage, you do not need a separate FTP program. You can use its “Publish” function to upload/send your page. There are at least two points to keep in mind, both of which have almost driven me out of my mind. One is that, unlike WS_FTP, which will dial-up your Internet connection, FrontPage will return an error message if you try to publish when you are not already online.
The other is that it will upload every file in the folder unless you specifically indicate that you do not want certain files published—and you have to select each of them individually. In other words, the default is to upload. Also, some sites cannot receive FrontPage files, or if they do, you have to follow special procedures. If you are familiar with Microsoft programs such as Word for Windows, you will recognize a lot of the commands and features in FrontPage, but it may be more of a program than you want to deal with, at least to get started.
We are about to make history. For the first time, Rovin’ and Ravin’ is going to have a trilogy, because we need another article about becoming a web-master (or web-mistress). Last week, we looked at how to find web space for free or else economical web hosting services as well as how to register a domain name, if you wish. This week, we’ve looked at some programs and tutorials to help you create your web pages and get them to your site. But, there are still two more crucial problems. Once you get your web site set up, how do you get people to look at it? And, just what do you do when you reach that stage in your life when you really need a dancing alligator on your web pages? Or, for that matter, a counter, a guest book, or other goodies. Check “Web-masters (and Mistresses) of the Universe.”
If you want to create web pages the old-fashioned way, writing HTML, here is a v primer for you. I don't know how to link to all the luck I with you! But, now matter how you go about creating and publishing your own website, keep your feet dry, your heart full of noble thoughts, and your browser pointed to all the good work that just ordinary people are putting on the Internet.
Find more articles about creating your own website.
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