Basics of writing a web page

Here's my first attempt at describing what goes into publishing a web page. I'll divide it into parts:

1. Obtaining web space
2. Writing the web page
3. Uploading the web page
4. Maintaining the web page

Obtaining web space

Most internet accounts come with web space included, so you've probably already got a few megabytes of space reserved for your web page. If not, there's always yahoo/geocities or a similar host that can provide you with a webpage, usually in return for advertising.

To get started you'll need to know your username (or login), your password and the address of your ftp server. (FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol) We'll be using these in the section Uploading the web page.

Writing the web page

Whole books have been written on how to write web pages. I'm just going to stick to what I think are the basic things to know. Much of it depends on your style. I like using raw html so I stick to using text editors to write web pages. There are many programs designed to make it easy to write a webpage. Arachnophilia and Netscape Composer are good free programs, but you can do just fine using a basic text editor (that's Notepad for Windows users). Netscape Composer is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that can sometimes stuff up in inexplicable ways - but it doesn't require knowledge of html. Arachnophilia helps you write the html and also facilitates previewing the finished webpage.

For those noble souls ready to start learning html you might try:

• HTML: An Interactive Site for Beginners
• Beginners Guide to HTML
• Lissa Explains it all - HTML help for Kids

Uploading the web page

Uploading means copying your files from your computer to your host's computer. This is done by File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

Unless your web space provider has an alternative, you'll need an ftp program. Under Windows I used WS FTP LE (Windows FTP Light Edition) which I gleaned from Tucows. It's a free program with a drag and drop interface so you don't need to learn the ftp commands - just point and click.

Maintaining the web page

Maintainence can be a pain. There's a great program for Linux called sitecopy that helps update your web page without having to use ftp for each file you change on your computer. I'll have to find out if there's a similar free program for Windows. Otherwise you have to organise yourself to keep track of what has been uploaded and what needs to be uploaded and where.