So....you want to have a page on the net? First you will have to have a server to hold your pages. In this area we have the Wood County FreeNet. With your yearly subscription you will get 10 megs (10 million bytes) of room for your home page and your email account. This is plenty of room for many pages. My site hosts all my home pages, Cub scout pages and Ohio Festivals pages and these take up about 1/2 of what is allotted.
If that is not enough room for your pages, for what you want to do, you can opt to create your pages on another server. There are many available on the net for FREE. One such place is Yahoo/GeoCities. I have my Pemberville, Ohio ~ USA pages and my Kids pages (religious pics to print and D'Nealian sheets) with them. They give you 15 megs of server space but you will have pop-up ads on your pages. That is how you get the page for free, by allowing these ads to appear on your page.
Your web site does not have to be hosted by WCNet for you to take these classes. As long as you have a server you can upload your pages to, so that I can check them, you can take these classes for free.
Secondly you will need something to write your code with. You can create HTML documents with Note pad (Windows) or SimpleText (MAC). Any basic editor will work. For this class we will use Note pad for Windows or SimpleText for the Mac. The purpose of this class is to learn how to do the coding yourself.
Here are some Saving tips if you want to use Note pad in Windows. These tips will also work with other programs in basically the same manner.
After taking this class, you may wish use a program that will help you write your own codes. There are many on the net you can download and use for Free or for a limited time (usually 30 days) before you have to actually buy.
After completing the basic class I will send you a link to down load a FREE program for coding your HTML documents. I have been using this one for the past two years and I love it. No names now...you do need to learn some code before using this one. :o]
There are also many WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editors available on-line. You may wish to try one of these after you learn some of the basics of HTML coding. They will allow you to create your documents visually with their program....but watch out, a lot of times you cannot do exactly what you want with them. That is why I highly suggest learning the codes yourself if you want to create your own pages. This will help you to read and change any codes in the WYSIWYG editor. :o]
For those interested, Front Page is NOT compatible with WCNet. They do not run their extensions, so do not use this program to upload your pages, graphics, whatever to WCNet.
Lastly, you will need a FTP Program to upload all your documents and graphics. Uploading is definitely different than down loading. With uploading you are putting your information on the net for others to view and use. A great FREE program to get is called WS_FTP and is the one I have been using since I started doing this. You can go the WCNets Help Desks FTP Site to get some great instructions for using WS_FTP. The program is pretty easy to use and once you do it a few times you will be a wiz. :o] There are other FTP programs on-line that are free if you don't want to use this one. Go to Shareware.com and do a search on FTP to find others.
I have had a few students asking about the FTP program I use. Unfortunately it is no longer available. It is called WS_FTP and the Pro 6.0 version is out. There is a 30 day period where you can try the program but then you must purchase it for a cost of $39.95.
I have put up a page with FTP Instructions using the version I have of WS_FTP, with some neat screen shots. You may want to check them out even if you are using a different program, most will operate the same basic way.
I did find some other free FTP programs. Here are the links, download them at your own risk.
For more on SAVING & VIEWING your files on your hard drive check out this page.
Please use the email link below if you have any questions about your lesson.
