Once you've been surfing the World Wide Web for a while,
you might, as I did, develop the desire to become a part of it and establish
your own little corner. Perhaps you have a business to promote, or a
soapbox to get on. Maybe put family photos up to show all your friends
rather than emailing Gigabytes of data all over the place. No matter,
I've assembled probably more information than you need to do exactly
that without having to spend a cent or toiling over humungous books
learning HTML.
So read ahead and lets get started!
What is a domain name?
A domain is simply an Internet term for the name of your site. Much
the same as a Pty Ltd company name, Domain names are all unique to identify
you on the World Wide Web.
For example www.domain.com.au
Domain Names needs to be registered with a name server to be valid,
and then hosted on a PC permanently connected to the net to be seen
by anyone.
There are some people who will let you use part of their Domain names
(called sub-domains.) for either a fee or the agreement for them to
place advertising on your site in the form of Popups or Banner Ads.
Most ISPs supply a free sub-domain* as part of the subscription. e.g.
www.users.bigpond.net.au/cableguy
* Update: BigPond no longer offer free hosting as a standard
feature with their Internet packages.
mydomain.com
has some excellent FAQs about domain names and registration.
Where do I register a Domain Name?
There are no free Domain names, only free sub-domains.
.coms can be registered from about $10.00 USD in hundreds of places.
.com.au has fairly strict conditions (must have ACN etc) and can only
be registered with .auDA
Accredited Registrars.
See also whatsinaname.com.au
Of course, you don't really have to know or understand any of this
as most web Hosts like Webcentral
(and the hundreds of others) will take care of all that for you as part
of their fees.
Some cheap sites that can help with Domain Name registering -
Every website needs to be "hosted" on a hard drive on a computer
permanently connected to the World Wide Web with an IP
address and a Domain Name Server (DNS) which converts the IP
address to the domain name and vice-versa.
Now, it is possible to do your own hosting but it can be expensive
and inconvenient as you will be paying for all the Internet traffic
going in and out and you'll need a PC that won't crash and take down
your site. Most people generally get a dedicated web hosting company
to do their web and email hosting for them for a setup cost and monthly
fee.
NOTE: Some ISPs, like Optus Cable, strictly forbid running a
server (which is what doing your own web hosting is) as part of their
Acceptable User Agreement. I know of lots of people that have had their
accounts cancelled for doing it.
To do your own web hosting it's generally easier with a static
IP address. However, it is possible with a Dynamic
IP by using services such as Alan Yates' DDNS.
DDNS stands for Dynamic Domain Name Server, and basically they relay
Internet requests for your domain name to whatever your IP address may
be at whatever time. There is also software available that automatically
notifies the DDNS Server every time your IP changes. More on DDNS on
the Remote Access page.
And then, on the home front, you'll need an operating system that can
act as a web server. A lot of people use NT4 SBS or Windows 2000 Server,
but there's the excellent little freeware Simple
Web Server from AnalogX which will work on any Windows operating
system.
Where do I go for free hosting?
There are dozens of free hosts available that are easy to find through
any search engine like google.
There's the common ones like The
Lycos Network who own Tripod
and Angelfire
and some rare ones without ads like F2S.com.
Then there's the free web spaces provided by the ISPs. I'll use BigPond*
as an example throughout this page. Telstra have webhosting
FAQs but they are fairly lengthy and somewhat confusing. This page
is a summary of the key points you'll need to know to set up and access
the free BigPond webspace. Other users will be able to find particulars
from their ISP's FAQs or Helpdesk.
* Update: BigPond no longer offer free hosting as a standard
feature with their Internet packages.
How do I build a Web Site?
To create your site you'll need an HTML editor. HTML is the "language"
used for webpages.
There are many editors to choose from with varying degrees of "user-friendliness"
and will give varying results. I'll give mention to the more common
ones, but there are heaps to choose from.
Notepad: Those experienced in HTML often use notepad and write
straight code. One friend mentioned that he could type faster than he
could use the mouse to open "palettes" and "layers"
and "drag and drop", which is nice for him, but way over my
head...
Word: My first attempt was done with Microsoft Word. This is
really easy to use.
Open Word, select "file" and "open new" and select
HTML document. Then type away and add links, pictures and anything you
want, by right-clicking the relevant spot.
Frontpage:
My next progression was to Microsoft Frontpage. Again, not much more
difficult than Word to use, but with some more interesting effects to
take advantage of. It is often criticized for being outdated and producing
crappy code. Interestingly, many professional web designers that specialize
in Macromedia
Flash, have returned to Frontpage as their HTML editor of choice.
It's ease of use and well planned layout are hard to go past. Mind you,
they do all their graphics with Flash which gets around Frontpage's
HTML shortcomings.
Note: Frontpage extensions aren't supported on the BigPond free
users sites. For other Webhosts, you may have still have issues with
Telstra's transparent proxy server. To get around this, configure your
browser to use BigPond Direct's proxy-server. See the General
FAQs for how to do this.
Frontpage
Express: A freeware version of Frontpage without the bloat.
There are numerous sites to download it from. See google.
Arachnoid:
One of several other freeware HTML editors available for download. Used
and loved by many.
Dreamweaver:
The current Industry standard. This site is done with Dreamweaver (and
a little bit of Frontpage 2000).
The results that can be achieved with Dreamweaver are usually more
professional looking than what can be done with the "lessor"
HTML editors.
The downside is that it is a fairly steep learning curve and not easy
to master. The upside is, once you do get your head around it, it is
a much more time effective solution (with the use of templates and linking
to style sheets), with "clean" code and the right "look"
about it. Dreamweaver comes with very handy tutorials and is available
for a 30 day trial.
Flash:
Not for the feint hearted. With Flash, you pretty much need to forget
everything you know about HTML and start over. Flash is all based around
a "timeline" and planned as a movie with the "motionless"
graphics in a permanent stop on the timeline. It is commonly used on
banners and Logos, as you can see on all the moving graphics on Telstra.com
but some sites are almost exclusively Flash with spectacular results.
See my Flash Links.
One of the beauties of Flash is it works on all browsers and will automatically
update your version as you open the page. Flash is also available for
a 30 day trial from Macromedia. It is sometimes criticized for being
just "eye candy" with little purpose, but I love it and believe
it's the beginning of the future for website design.
Swish:
Gives "flash-like" animation without Flash. A lot easier to
work with and a good stepping stone to big brother Flash.
How do I Create my own Graphics?
One thing the HTML editors don't do much of, is create graphics. For
this you'll need some graphics software.
Microsoft
Paint: Paint comes standard with windows and is simple to use,
but it has it's place. It's results can be blurry and a bit "amateurish"
but it comes in handy for clipping and resizing images.
Tip: You can use paint (or any of the other graphics applications
below) to create Windows screenshots. Just press the "print screen"
key on your keyboard then open Paint and click edit and paste. If you
just want a screenshot of one window, hold the "alt" key while
you press the "print screen" key. Save images as gif or jpg
for use on websites, news postings and email as they are much, much
smaller than bitmaps (bmp) and don't take as long to load.
Adobe
Photoshop:A bit nasty to learn but gives truly excellent results.
Free trial available.
Macromedia
Fireworks: Difficult to use, but comes with tutorials and is
available for 30 day trial.
CorelDraw:
Haven't tried this one but it's popularity gets it a mention.
Once you've got your website created, you'll want to get it on the
WWW for other people to see.
To do this with BigPond*, first you'll have to go to "Create
and Manage" in the "about
webhosting" section and create your username and password to
access it.
This username and password is not related to your BigPond login
username and password unless you want it to be...
The Username you choose will be the site name - www.users.bigpond.net.au/username,
and the password can be anything 6 digits or more. Both are case sensitive
so watch the caps-lock!
Note: Your main page must be titled (saved as) index.html. Telstra
put a default index.html on your site until you "upload" your
own. You can either delete this default page or when you upload, your
own index.html will overwrite it.
* Update: BigPond no longer offer free hosting as a standard
feature with their Internet packages.
How do I access CGI scripts (Hit counters & stuff)?
CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts, are the things like hit counters
and clocks that you can put on your site. Some webhosts have all kinds
of CGI scripts supported (like guestbooks) but the free BigPond site
only has CGI for clocks, counters and "form to email".
To add a hit counter like this one
, put this code in the relevant spot-
(where XXXX is your sitename and DD=D is the style of counter
you want. Choose from DD=A, B, C, D, E or F). Also, open notepad and
save the blank page as sample.dat and upload it to your site
or the counter won't work.
Note: This won't look sensible until you "upload"
the site.
For a clock like this -
, copy this code and insert it into the relevant spot-
As for counters, the "&DD=D" part is for the style of
clock you want from A to E.
There are more examples you can copy from the BigPond.com
FAQs. Just remember to use bigpond.net.au wherever you find
bigpond.com.
The other CGI script "form to email" (like for accepting
orders etc.) is in the Telstra
webhosting FAQs. This was written with BigPond dial-up members in
mind so I've changed this info to suit Broadband users and added a couple
more details here.
There are other services available that provide counters that don't
rely on CGI scripts, like the one from
sitemeter (shown below) which emails statistics to me. Visible sitemeters
are considered out of style, but lots of people still find them interesting.
Click on it for more info.
How do I Upload my site?
Now that you've got your site created and your webspace activated,
you'll need a way to get it from your computer to the host. This is
done with FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
Note: Frontpage has a unique http method of managing websites
on-line which is not supported by a lot of web hosts, like the free
web spaces that ISPs provide to subscribers. If you've been tearing
your hair out trying to get some Frontpage features to work, this is
probably why.
There are several FTP clients to choose from and most are available
for trial. (Some don't stop working after the trial period ends) The
most common is Cuteftp
but I use flashfxp.
It can even be done with DOS. There is a basic rundown of DOS FTP commands
and "how-to's" at tucows.
Most of the HTML editors have their own FTP clients built in, but they
are often difficult to use and don't show the site's files at the other
end.
FTP clients are all fairly similar to use. I'll use flashfxp as an
example. They have a list
of screen shots so I won't bother adding any more. With flashfxp
(as well as most of the others), uploading is merely a case of dragging
and dropping the relevant files.
All you need to do is set up a log in to your BigPond webspace, is
to click on "site"(top) > site manager > new site (bottom
left), tell it your sitename and add in the missing bits as below.
No other details are necessary
Note: In the IP address
field you can alternatively put users.bigpond.net.au, and the Site Name
field can be anything.
That's it
As soon as it's finished uploading, you'll be able to see it on the
World Wide Web at www.users.bigpond.net.au/your site name.
Flash
Just a few links to very impressive sites specializing
in Flash.
Signup with PeopleTelecom using the OzCableguy.com
Agent Code of Q16 and become a VIP customer for great discounts
off modems and all other products! Click here for more
info.
Don't forget to check out the OzCableguy
online shop delivering IT equipment Australia wide.
Phone (07) 3325 5917 or email
