Doug Paulson's Homepage Helper Links
I'm not a world-class expert, but I needed help in building a homepage,
found some nice resources, and decided to share them on this page.
Here are some links that provide a simple and easy way to get a homepage
online in a hurry. These folks have provided a form that will guide you
through the process. Generally, they have the service for their subscribers,
who have paid a monthly fee for internet service. However, the first one on
the list, provides space for your homepage on their server FOR FREE! Right
after it I have provided a link to the simple homepage I did in a Geocities
neighborhood as an example of the type of thing you can do with just the forms
they provide.
Geocities Homesteading page where you can sign on as a user and use their
forms to create a homepage in one short session.
Here is the link to my simple
Geocities Homepage, which I posted in their "Athens" neighborhood, since
that seemed more appropriate, given my age (retiree) and academic connection
(Val A. Browning Library at Dixie College). However, they provide
neighborhoods for every taste, from Soho to Beverly Hills, to a Tropical Isle.
So, even if you don't use Geocities as a place to anchor your homepage, you
might enjoy surfing the web among their clients. The Doug Paulson Homepage features links to
Finland, The Utah Jazz, Dixie College, and Southwestern Utah. Let's call it
a practice run that forced meto take this course to learn how to do a
multi-page homepage, since the form they provide limits the number of entries
you can make. And, incidentally, the easy upload format they provide is new
and very slick. Others could adopt this method for us newbies!
The Wizard
Internet Provider in Las Vegas has this easy-to-use form to help you put
up a homepage with just a few minutes effort. This links back to a page
prepared by "Fifi," who also recommends her favorite Las Vegas coffeehouses,
and links you to her pals at the Wizard shop where she works, as well as to
the rest of her gang. This one is fun as well as being instructive.
The Rain
internet provider in Santa Barbara has a set of online classes and a
handy-dandy guide that is easy to follow also. The other guides might be
quite useful also when we get into more advanced levels. But here again,
the guides for loading the completed homepage apply to their clients.
I found this one because rain.org is the server for the homepage of the
Social Security Office in Santa Barbara, CA, and I used their HTML code as
the basis for a homepage I put together for the SSA office in St. George.
By the Way -- Don't Forget!
In some cases, you may be able to use an HTML editor provided with your
internet browser to create a homepage. Both Netscape and Microsoft have them,
and most internet software packages you buy off the shelf include an HTML
editor. Frankly, I didn't like them myself. When I tried a couple, I found
out why the experts here at Dixie College said they prefer to just use a text
editor to prepare their HTML documents. But for someone else it may be much
easier to use an HTML editor. There are tons of them on the Net, as well.
Some are freeware, some shareware, and others are simply for sale.
Like any other product, they all claim to be the best, and some of them offer
a two-week trial period, etc., and claim you can get a complex homepage done,
complete with sounds and animated graphics, in that timeframe. [Then, if you
want to make changes, you'll be trapped! You will have become used to their
product, and will buy it just so you can keep making those little changes and
improvements which are inevitable!
So here are some links to HTML editors, and HTML guides that looked good
to me: [You can make a wider search and find umpteen more, I am sure.
OR, you can try the ones listed in the Utah statewide Internet Navigator course material.
In my judgment...but then, what do you care about my judgment? I am convinced
that each person is going to look at these things from a very personal
perspective, and what I think is great may be cumbersome for someone else. I
can comment on how easy something was for me to follow, but another person may
feel differently.]
If you have a Compuserve account, then you should definitely
look at their excellent page of links to various HTML resources in their
Ourworld domain.
In particular, they have a tool page that will
provide all the help you need to create a homepage, then save it on
Compuserve and publish it for the world to see! From this site you can
download the Compuserve Homepage Wizard (it used to be online, but they just
changed the references) which gets your page up and running quickly. You
have to download the software first, and of course, you have to be a
Compuserve client to put up your homepage on their server.
The other major services have similar helper setups to get
your homepage up if you are their client. Microsoft, AT&T Worldnet, Sprint
Net, MCI Net, etc. all want to have your business... But be sure you check
their charges..."Look before you leap." Also you can do a homepage on many
local internet servers, and most of them will have their own HTML help pages
such as this one on America
Online.
And, wouldn't you know, the one I ended up liking best was
not on the web at all, but in a soft-cover book, put out by Ziff-Davis Press,
How to Use HTML3 by Scott Arpajian. This is not the one for idiots,
nor even the one for dummies...it's for people like me who have to look at the
pictures! Step by step, code by code, with each step fully illustrated just
as it appears on your screen. Another plus is they did not put in any of those
corny non-jokes the other books for non-nerds are laced with! I snatched it
up soon as I saw it, and give it a fifteen star rating.
Last, but NOT Least--
Here is a compendium of sources for those neat little smiley faces, crazy
divider lines, bars, rules, gizmos, gimcracks, and silly wild graphic images
that make a homepage sooo-- much more personal. Some of the ones I have used
on this page come from a source in Finland, at the University of Vaasa, so I
have included that reference to assure you that you are truly on the
WORLD-WIDE Web!
The "Cluck
Collection" compiled by Bryce Fox, one of our Dixie College computer
whizzes. Bryce likes to use frames, so if you want know about them, back up
to his homepage; you'll have to use the URL to do this--I accessed his old,
non-frame page on purpose, to avoid frames in this document and its links,
where possible.
The makers of
the "Hotdog"HTML Editor provide a link to a bunch of neat sites from
which you can pull off some graphic images. I linked this page particularly
because it has a brief list of common-sense rules on what is okay to use and
what is not okay to use, under normal copyright rules. You can also back up
to their home page, and order one or more of their software packages from this
link.
This is Timo Salmi's
Homepage, from which you can locate many other pages of cute little .GIF
graphics. One of these is just full of flags of the world. Timo is a
talented webmaster and discussion group moderator as well. His English is
excellent, but if you really want to be confused, try to read the parts of
his pages written in Finnish or Swedish! I put this link in on purpose,
for two reasons: 1. I have an abiding interest in things Finnish; and 2.
I wanted to show that you can obtain neat stuff on the Web in English
from sources throughout the world!
I saved this one for last. (Aha! He saved the best for last! -- all a
lie, I just found this one last.) This dandy HTML tutor came to me
not through a scientifically well-structured search, but totally by accident.
(Science invented the term "serendipity" to explain
stuff that happened by accident. Probably just to make it seem important by
using a big word to explain that they just made a mistake that happened to
have a positive outcome.)
And it may be the most useful thing I have run
across.
I was looking up stuff about a science fiction author,
followed a link to a couple of fan webpages, and tripped over this reference
on one of them.
This HTML tutor package is aimed at teachers, but it is a dandy we all
could use, and can be downloaded in compressed format. The
Maricopa Co. AZ school
district did a fine job on this HTML tutor! Try it, you'll like it!
Return to Doug Paulson's Homepage
This page last revised November 17, 1996
Direct comments to: Doug
Paulson (e:mail [email protected])