|
|
CONTENTS
Web Publishing Possibilities
The third most common is "Where do I put my page when I'm done?".
You have three choices:
- Use your existing Internet provider
- Try to find a free hosting provider
- Sign up with a commercial hosting provider
Use Your Existing Internet Provider
If you access the Internet via a corporate or educational network, your
institution may have its own Web server that you can use. If you get your Net
jollies through an access provider, ask them if they have a Web server
available. Many providers will put up personal pages free of charge.
Try to Find a Free Hosting Provider
There are a few hosting providers that will host your Web pages on the net
for free.
Sign Up with a Commercial Hosting Provider
For personal and business-related Web pages, most Web artisans end up renting
a chunk of a Web server from a commercial hosting provider. You normally fork
over a setup fee to get your account going, and then you're looking at a monthly
fee that gets you two things:
- A specified amount of storage on the Web server for your files-The
amount of acreage you get determines the amount of info you can store. For
example, if you get a 5MB limit, you can't store more than 5MB worth of files on
the server. HTML files don't take up much real estate, but large graphics sure
do, so you'll need to watch your limit.
- A specified amount of bandwidth-Bandwidth is a measure of how
much data the server serves. For example, suppose the HTML file for your page is
1KB (kilobyte) and the graphics associated with the page consume 9KB. If someone
accesses your page, the server ships out a total of 10KB; if ten people access
the page, the total bandwidth is 100KB. Caveat emptor: Most providers charge you
an extra fee for exceeding your bandwidth limitation, so check this out before
signing up.
The world's capitalists-efficient free-market types that they are-smelled
plenty of money to be had once the explosive growth of the Web became apparent.
This means there's certainly no shortage of Web hosting providers available. In
fact, there are hundreds of the darn things.
What happens when you sign up with one of these providers? Well, after you
establish your account, the Web administrator will create two things for you: a
directory on the server computer that you can use to store your Web page files,
and your very own URL. (This is also true if you're using a Web server
associated with your corporate or school network.)
Your URL will normally take one of the following shapes:
http://provider/login/
http://login.provider/
Here, provider is the host name of your provider (for example,
www.nethomes.com), login is your login name.
Before Transfer
Once you decide on a hosting provider, you're just about ready to transfer
your files to your directory on your hosting provider's server. Before you do
that, however, you need to do the look-before-you-leap thing. That is, you need
to give your files the once-over to make sure everything's on the up-and-up.
Here's a short checklist to run through:
- HTML isn't hard, but it's fussy, persnickety stuff. If you miss even the
smallest part of a single tag, your entire page could look like a real dog's
breakfast. To avoid this, recheck your tags to make sure they look right. In
particular, make sure that each tag's opening angle bracket (<) has a
corresponding closing angle bracket (>), that links and <IMG> tags have
two sets of quotation marks ("/"), and that tags such as <B>,
<I>, <U>, <H1>, <OL>, <UL>, <DL>, and
<A>, have their appropriate closing tags (</B>, </I>, and so
on).
- URLs are easy to mistype, so double check all your links. The best way to do
this is to load the page into a browser and then try clicking on the links.
- Different browsers have different ways of interpreting your HTML codes. To
make sure your Web page will look good to a large percentage of your readers,
load the page into as many different browsers as you can.
- One of the advantages of using a word processor to create HTML files is that
you usually have access to a spell checker. If so, make sure you use it to look
for spelling gaffes in your page. You might want to add all the HTML tags to
your custom dictionary so they don't constantly trip up the spell checker. In
any case, you should always reread your text to make sure things make sense and
are at least semi-grammatical.
- Create a list of all the files you need. This includes not only the HTML
documents, but also any graphics files referenced in your pages. This way, you
can easily make sure you don't miss any files during the transfer.
- Make backup copies of all your files before beginning the transfer. If
anything untoward should happen while you're sending your files, you'll be able
to recover gracefully.
Transfer!
Now, at long last, you're ready to get your page on the Web. To proceed, you
have two choices:
- If the Web server is on your company's or school's network, you'll send the
files over the network to the directory set up by your system administrator.
- Otherwise, you'll send the files to the directory created for you on the
hosting provider's Web server. You need to use the Internet's FTP (File Transfer
Protocol) service.
Advertising Your Page
Okay, your page is out there in Webspace. Now what? How are people supposed
to know that your new cyberhome is up and running and ready for visitors? Well,
people won't beat a path to your door unless you tell them how to get there. For
starters, you can spread the news via word of mouth, e-mail notes to friends and
colleagues, and by handing out your shiny, new business cards that have your
home page URL plastered all over them. Also, it's worth checking to see if your
hosting provider has a section devoted solely to announcing new customer pages.
For the Internet at large, however, you'll need to engage in a bit of
shameless self-promotion. While there's no central database of Web pages, there
are a few spots you can use to get some free publicity for your new page. These
include UseNet newsgroups, "What's New" pages, Web directories, Web
search engines, mailing lists, and more. Good luck!
The Least You Need to Know
This chapter completed your course on creating your first Web page by showing
you how to get your page out onto the Net. Here's a quick review before the
final exam:
- To allow others access to your Web pages, you have to store them on a
computer called a Web server. Web servers are maintained either on your
corporate or school network, or by a company called a hosting provider.
- If you can't get access to a Web server through your existing network or
service provider, you'll either need to find a free hosting provider, or you'll
need to rent space with a commercial hosting provider.
- Before sending out your pages, check your HTML codes and your spelling, try
the page in different browsers, and make backup copies of your files.
- You send your Web page files to your hosting provider's computer using FTP
(File Transfer Protocol).
- Once you properly set up your page, the Net has quite a few resources you
can use to advertise your page.
|
