These instructions are a quick run-through on setting up your first website. There can be found many locations on the web which will provide you with additional detail.

These instructions will assume that the website you are going to make is for personal use and not a business. There are other options to think about when starting a business on the web.

First, you need to know where you want to host your website. To “host” a website means to store it in a place where it is accessible to everyone on the Internet. This isn't something you can do on your home computer. The data is backed up for you in case of a system failure. There are some free options, but those will limit you in some way or will pop-up advertisements that you do not want on your site. Also, a free host may start charging at any time or change their commitment to you.

ScottFam.us recommends Crosswinds.net for hosting. The price is good.

After you have determined where you want to host your site then you need to come up with a domain name. This is the name of your site. In our case, it is ScottFam.us. You cannot use a name that is already in use. The hosting company will give you the option to select the name you want. Remember that you will be stuck with the option you make so choose carefully.

After you have chosen your host and your domain name you need to start makeing the pages of your site. You can use a GUI application which will allow you to easily create your site like you would a Word document or you can use an application such as notepad to type the HTML code directly.

A good Freeware GUI application is NVU. The name of your first page needs to be either “index.htm” or “index.html” After that, you can name the rest of the pages whatever you want. Note that everything is case sensitive so “INDEX.HTML” is not the same as “index.html”.

If you aren't very good with graphics you can create cool graphics easily by using graphic generators provided on the web. Here is a list of a few good ones:

http://www.glittermaker.com/
http://www.cooltext.com/
http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/
http://www.xara.com/referrer/headmaker_trial.asp

Learning the HTML code itself takes a little time, but it is worth it since you can do so much more! You can plug-in so many cool features into your site which are provided for free! Here is a list of a few:

DHTML / JavaScript Code:
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/

SiteMaps:
Manual Generator - http://www.sitemapdoc.com/
Automated: http://www.freefind.com/

Site Search:
http://www.freefind.com/

Count Down Clocks:
http://www.7is7.com/otto/countdclock.html

RSS Feed Content Display:
http://www.rssfeedreader.com/

For HTML Training, here are a couple of good sites to check:
http://www.htmlbasix.com/
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/

If you make your pages with the HTML code then you need to transmit the files to the host. You do this with an FTP program. Note that programs such as NVU will transmit the files for you. Here are our recommendations for FTP programs:
CoreFTP