Creating a Web Site

Building your own Web Site:
Many ISP's allow customers to have web space to post a private web site. Some even provide web building tools and up load programs to help you post to the site. If your provider does this, creating your own web page is easy, but even is your provider doesn't you can still create a site with free software. You might even have a program on your computer already. Windows Works has the ability to make simple web pages and save them in HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language), the language of the Web.
The first and most important rule when making a web page is PLAN, PLAN and PLAN ahead. Doing it right the first time saves messing up what you have done just to make one small change. HTML is very touchy about formatting. One good idea is to look at several web sites and see what you like and don't like. Which ones are easy to read. What colors work well together. A few examples are www.rowellmanagement.com/rowell/outside_home.asp, www.google.com and of course our own web page, www.robroyccv.com .
Draw a sketch of what you want on a piece of paper. Put in what you want to say and where you want to place it. Remember it is like painting an oil painting, start from the background and work forward. Web sites are made of layers like a painting, when you add things they cover up the background and if you add a new background item it covers the foreground. Plan space and a location for images. Once you've put down a hard copy on paper and like it, you are ready to work with your computer.
If you want to use a web builder there is a free one called WebDwarf that can be downloaded free and used for non-commercial website building. http://www.virtualmechanics.com/products/dwarf
Choose the free version and install it. It has a built in FTP loader. To upload to your web site you might need a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client program. I have found that Core FTP Lite works really well and is free. You can download it and install it from http://www.coreftp.com/download.html. Choose the free version and download it and install.
Open your word processor, in my case Open Office, and create a master page. This will define the background color and Major heading for all your pages. Once you have completed this, save it as “your Master document” in a “new file folder”. This folder will store all files used for your web page. You can now use it to make your first page the “Index page”.
The first page of every web site is called Index.html. After you have typed in any text and images you want using the word processor, check it out by choosing “File/Preview" in Browser and make sure everything looks right. If it needs changes, make them. When you are happy, save it as an “index.doc” in your web folder. Then using the File/Save As menu save your page as a HTML format, “Index.HTML”. Any images you have used should also be copied to this folder. If you want to have additional pages on your site you can again open the “Master Document” and create them. This second page must be linked to the “Index” page using a specific name so the user can see all your pages. For this demo we will only have one page.
The next step is to upload all the files to your ISP (Internet Service Provider). Every ISP that provides web space has instructions for uploading
This is the WOW instructions:
To Utilize your web space at the WOW! Customer Home Page
Log in with the Primary account.
First you must initial Select Account Manager.
3. Select Account Settings.
4. Select Webspace Maintenance and initialize your web space.
5. Note: Once you have initialized your web space you will no longer be able to change your primary e-mail account username.
To upload content to your web space, follow the step by step instructions:Open your FTP client program of choice (WS_FTP, Cute FTP etc)
FTP to ftp-www.wowway.com (this is the host address) Password: (Same as Primary E-mail account) Username: (Same as Primary E-mail account)'
The main page (the front page of your website) on your web space must be named index.htm or index.html
To see your website go to www.wowway.com/~primaryusername (i.e. www.wideopenwest.com/~jdoe9251)
Open Core FTP from the icon on your desk top. Fill in the host address, for my site it is www.wideopenwest.com, and the password and email for the account. In the large left hand box choose “browse” and find the folder you created to hold all your web site files. Add the Index.HTML and all the graphic files you have used. Then choose upload. In seconds you're done. Depending on the size of your files and the speed of your ISP your Web site will be available in seconds. You can use Core FTP to change your page by reversing the download or overwriting the files with the same names.