HOW I CREATED MY FIRST WEBPAGE
Welcome, this is my
version of a beginner’s guide to creating a webpage/site. This is not meant to
be the definitive way to approach this, just the way I found the easiest.
I suppose this creation
bug came about from an interest in computers, thrust upon me at work when I was
forced into the 20th century and it's modern ways of documentation.
As an engineer, I was more used to what is now considered a manual backup to the
PC, a pencil and paper. This, along with the need to equip my family with the
tools needed to tackle a modern world pushed me into buying a home PC. This was
built for me by my youngest brother from what bits he had lying about,
literally. It works great, thanks Kev (guess it should really be bigger,
stronger, faster, eh).
The first thing we did
was get on to Freeserve and get an e-mail address. This was the turning
point, access to the web. I still find it spooky that you can type in almost
anything onto my chosen search engine, webferret and up come loads of responses. After a while, I got to thinking, I should get a
site so that I can see my own name up there (I know, vain).
I had already figured
that I could use my existing word processor package (Microsoft word) to
write HTML documents because every time I hit "save as", when working
on a document, I saw the HTML option. So, constructing a document, albeit very
basic, could be accomplished, but, how do I make the next step and get it onto
the web ?
I was fortunate (I am
a firm believer in fate) that our office at work was moved around and I
ended up alongside Mike Evans. Not only do we have a similar sense of humour but
he also happens to run the Intranet at work. He was an absolute mine of
information, pointing me in the right direction, thanks Mike; this is all, your
fault.
Apparently, the next
thing I would need was an FTP software package, preferably cheap or ideally
free, but where from ? My old friend the web came up with the top ten free
packages so the first two were downloaded.
Now, no disrespect to
these two packages but as a complete novice, I found them completely unusable.
None of the help options used words I could understand. I spent a whole week
hitting every button they had and got absolutely nowhere except into a foul
mood. I came to the conclusion that if websites were easy we would all have one
and this was just adding to the mystery of them.
In desperation I returned
to the Freeserve homepage (my old mate Stan always used to come
out with a good statement when things got dire, if in doubt, read instructions).
Somewhere on this had to be the answer.
Sure enough, if I had
taken the trouble to look, there, laid out for me was a step by step instruction
on how to use the 15Meg of webspace allocated to me. I skipped past the
"how to do a webpage" part and went straight to the "how to load
the page" part. This suggested the download of yet another FTP programme
called Terrapin. Reluctantly I did this and wow, what a surprise. Such a more, user-friendly bit
of kit I have yet to find. It's so good I will probably buy it when the 30-day
trial runs out. As you go through the various filling in bits, which always
accompany these things, it puts the information into the correct boxes for you
to upload files painlessly. Providing you have named your chosen page
"index.htm" you will be uploaded quicker than it takes to read this.
As it is doing so, a wizard pops up and guides you through the steps, checking
all the links you may have used and gives you the option of stopping and fixing
them or just plain going for it. I chose the later for obvious reasons, but have
since gone back and made a few tweaks, all quite painlessly. For those of you
who never saw the first webpage, I suggest giving the link below a try. Looking
back, it's quite basic but it got me hooked !
view my first attempt at a webpage
Having got this far, all that’s left to do is load it onto a search engine (only do this if you want all the world to see how clever you are).
But be sure to follow the
on screen instructions as the method used varies between sites.
Alternatively, just enter submit or upload pages to your own search
engine and see what you find. Let
me know the easy/good ones.
2002 UPDATE
I recently started using Microsoft's Front Page to construct my webpages/sites. If you can cut and paste in any of the Office Suite of programmes then this is for you. I still think you need to know how HTML works as a basis for setting up the links etc, but this is the way to go. In addition, I had to change servers from freeserves so I went to Geocities. Once you follow the prompts to choose a website name etc, you go to load files and away you go, instant website.