Number 209 - October 2000

A Web Site For Everyone - How To Make One!
by By Stephen Morgan - APCUG, smorgan@multipro.com - April 2000 NOCCC
Over 800 million web pages are in existence. More than 20,000 domain names are being registered every week: will it ever stop? My guess is that it will only get worse. By the end of the year, there could be over 2 billion web pages out there, so why not join in the fun! In this article we will talk about how anyone with Internet access can create his or her own web site!     These days, creating a simple web site is as easy as writing a letter. With most word processors, you can save the document you just created as a web page just by clicking on file, and specifying Save As HTML. Even multiple pages will save as a very long home web site. This is a great way to create a web site, add some pictures and then practice uploading it to your Internet Host.     Perhaps an even easier way to create a web site is to use one of the commercial services such as Yahoo/GeoCities. These sites use simple wizards to let you have creative control over how the web site looks. They let you import documents and pictures and also create the links that bind everything together. As a test, I created two different web sites on Yahoo/GeoCities. My first simple web site took me 20 minutes to create (I was told it should take about 10 minutes), mainly because I was plagued by long waits between the set-up screens. I then went in and created an elaborate site, with several uploaded pictures and articles that were already stored on my computer. This site took me over six hours, with over an hour spent just uploading documents to the web. Both sites looked very good, since the wizards guide you on where to put pictures and text. Yahoo/GeoCities also lets you upload a pre-existing web site that you have made using other programs. This is a huge timesaver since you will not waste time uploading each individual document and using the Yahoo wizards. The downside to having a commercial site host your homepage is that they will put advertising on every page of your site.     My favorite program for creating web sites is Microsoft Publisher. With just a basic knowledge of creating documents with pictures, it is very easy to use the included Web Wizard to create a detailed web site. The same site that took six hours to create online took me less than two hours with Publisher. By using simple Copy All and Paste commands, along with its	easy import picture commands, my web site took less than 30 minutes to set up and get the documents in place. Then I spent the next 90 minutes being picky as I aligned the text and pictures by using the View As Web Page command. As easy as it is to use, Publisher has a few drawbacks. First, it does not always accurately show exactly how the web page will look. Second, there is no embedded File Transfer Protocol (FTP) utility that would allow it to be easily uploaded, which makes you download and learn third party software.     Another Microsoft product, FrontPage is one of the most powerful consumer/professional web page creation programs out there. Unfortunately, it also has a high learning curve. It took me about 10 hours of reading the FrontPage for Dummies book and following along in order to start using FrontPage. I would estimate that it took about 20 more hours of experimenting with the program and consulting the book again before I was confident about my ability to create a good site. Once you do learn it though, FrontPage makes it a snap to create a web site that will look just as good on the web as it does on your computer. And since it includes its own File Transfer Protocol program, it is a snap to upload and update your pages with compatible hosting services.     Creating a web site is something that more and more people are doing. The last estimate that I have seen is that there are over 5 million personal web sites available on the web. I think that within 3 years, a majority of the worlds industrialized population will have their own web site. The coming incredible fusion of computers, wireless modems and the Internet will continue to make access to the Web as common as using a telephone is today. When you add in the hundreds of companies actively competing to host web sites, you should agree, there is no better time to start than today     The Association of Computer User Groups (APCUG), brings this article to you. Stephen Morgan is the Program Chair for the Plateau PC Users Groups in Tennessee, and also serves as the Regional APCUG Advisor for North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi.
Number 209 - October 2000