Lesson 7: You have Graduated

Congratulations! You have beaten through six days of HTML and struggled with all those silly tags.

Here's your Diploma:

Now you can go on and tackle the Intermediate and Advanced HTML easily. You'll understand them now. Before the six lessons, any one of them would make you quit.

Now What?

Now you need to find a place to post the page you wrote for the World Wide Web. But where? You can choose any one of a million places. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) are popping up everywhere. Just graze through the Internet. You should be able to choose from a bunch.

How Much Should I Pay?

Depending on what you want, you could pay a great deal or a little bit. You shouldn't pay more than between Dhs50 and Dhs120 a month. Some say you should pay nothing, but I'm not overly sold on free page sites. I think you're better off paying a little so you can do more. I'll talk about free sites in a moment. First of all, here are a few things you should get for your money if you decide to buy some space from an ISP:

1. You should get at least 50 Megabyte of space on which to place your own HTML documents.
2. You should get e-mail, Telnet, FTP, and Newsgroup access.
3. Finally, you should have access to Help where you can actually talk to a person, not just via e-mail or a help line answering machine.

What About Free Sites?

Well, first of all, you don't have to shell out any cash. You get a meg or two of space with which to put up a page. Many offer e-mail, too. The two most popular free home page sites are Geocities.com and Angelfire.com.

But if you take a free page with either service, you will play by their rules and you'll have to show their banner ads. You will have limited abilities to do anything other than post pages and images. It's their server, you're a guest. And since what you are getting is free, you don't have much of a leg to stand on to complain.

Plus, as I noted above, they are not completely free. Geocities and others make their money by selling ad banners. Every time someone pops into your page, an ad banner pops up. Now, I don't mind ad banners, I love that they keep my site free for you to use, but if ad banners bug you, then free sites are not for you.

Where to post your pages is a tough choice. Weigh all your options before jumping on a service provider. Don't make cost your only factor. I cannot recommend or downplay any provider. I think getting a connection to the Net should be a personal choice. Just make a point of getting what is above as you can get it all fairly easily.

How Do I Get My Pages On The WWW?

You need to use an FTP program. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. It's a small program that allows you to place files from your computer to your service provider's computer. You should get an FTP program from your service provider along with directions on how to use it. If not, go to Yahoo's FTP program pages, and look at some that are available. Most are free.

WHAT?! There's free software for you over the World Wide Web? You have no idea. There is so much you'll simply go bonkers filling your hard drive. I did. Most is what's called shareware. That means you use it for a while and if you like it you send the author a couple of bucks. It's only fair.

Speaking of Software
What About Those HTML Assistants
You Mentioned In Lesson 1?

I knew you'd ask me that. If you'd like to try a few HTML help programs, try The Yahoo HTML Editor page and look over a few. Each has its own merits.

What Do They Do?

They do a good bit, actually. The Help programs are usually set up like a word processor with a whole lot of little buttons to push. Those buttons give you the tags. For instance, you'd click on the B button and get the Begin and End tags to make something bold. They also save the files in the text format required. I use "MS FrontPage" and "Dreamweaver". Both are PC programs that are only as involved as you allow them to be. You can use the buttons or not. I've also been told HoTMeTal is good, as is Hot Dog. You might use those names when you search through Yahoo.com.

Assistants are helpful, but don't get too involved in using one. Remember, this is your page. You do the writing. What fun is using a program that does half the work for you?

Now What Do I Do?

My suggestion would be to go next into Advanced HTML courses. There were many computer training schools available in UAE. Please allow me to make suggestions before you pick and choose. 

Zablan Information Systems. This is owned by a Filipino and most of the trainers are also Filipinos. They have a lot of courses being offered including MS FrontPage 2000 or XP.

Now Go Get 'Em!

You're on your own! Write me by clicking here and let me know what you thought of this set of lessons. I really enjoy feedback, good or bad.

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: this is a MUST submit assignment.

Create your personal website in a floppy diskette that includes your assignments (e.g., resume.html, aboutme.html, links.html, etc.)  as pages within your site. Name your homepage with index.html. Make sure that navigation links are available in all your pages. Don't forget to test it in your floppy diskette before submitting it next meeting making sure that all files including images are saved in the floppy disk too. After making this assignment, you may now upload it to the Internet.