Web Page Design: Setting up a Web Site 01

When you are ready for a more professional web site, here are the steps you need to follow:

  1. Find a Domain Name for your Web Site. Let's say you want: "CANNON-BALL.COM". Check to see if it has been taken or reserved. You formerly had to go to an organization called Internic ( http://rs.internic.net), but recently, the registration and reoganization was taken over by ICANN ( http://www.icann.com/.) There are now a large number of commercial companies that handle registration of domain names, "parking" of names, and in some cases, even Web hosting. The cost varies wildly now so it's worth doing research.

    For a list of all (or most, anyway), of the companies which register domain names, go to ICANN's list of registrars: http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html. ICANN has the most current and valuable domain name information on other topics and links to other sites of interest:

    This whole area of study shifts in a heartbeat, so at least for now, ICANN will have the latest information. Anything printed (including this) is out of date!

  2. You will also need a computer to which you can upload your site, called "web hosting." You can use the ISP you already have, or the service you chose to reserve your domain name may also provide this service. Of course there are free places such as Geocities ( www.oocities.org). However, if you want a commercial site, you'll need to spend money (though it needn't be a lot!) Ask around and again, research is in order.
  3. After you've contracted with a host, their technical contact will ask you for your account name (for e-mail and system access). There may be a setup charge and monthly fees for this service. Many ISPs have several grades of service based on web site size, e-mail volume, and traffic.
  4. When your account is set up, the ISP will tell you where your FTP and WWW pages are to go. Typically, you will have a directory structure that looks something like this (most web sites are on Unix machines): 
    /user/ftp/public/cannonball/

               Put your FTP files here

/user/ftp/public/cannonball/www/

               Put your Web pages here, making subdirectories 
               as you need them. This is your web site.
  5. The ISP will configure their server to respond to your web host name: www.cannon-ball.com and send the server file requests to your directory. A URL like: "http://www.cannon-ball.com/home.html" will get mapped to the file "/user/ftp/public/cannonball/www/home.html"
  6. Make sure you set up your file and directory permissions for world readable access (but NOT world writable!). Think about your site directory layout. Don't just put all your files in one directory.
  7. You will be sending your web pages to the ISP via FTP. You can get a simple Unix book to learn how to operate the shell and FTP. Or, you can get a simple FTP software package (http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0,10151,0-10064-106-0-1-0,00.html?tag=dir) to do it. FrontPage users may be able to upload the files directly. You'll need your host's technical contact to tell you how to do this. There are also other tools that will let you make your web site on your local computer and automatically publish changes to your ISP web site. Netscape Composer is free, and it does a decent job. Macromedia Dreamweaver is an excellent but expensive tool for web site management.
  8. As you write your web pages, test them using Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator to find irregularities. Try different window sizes, color schemes and font sizes, your viewers will. Finally, test your HTML and style sheets against a validator. You can submit HTML to the W3C validator at http://validator.w3.org/ and submit style sheets to http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator-uri.html.

Notes from prior classes (As of March 2001):

From Brenda:
I've finally done it. I am the proud owner of my own domain name: www.PaperRevival.com. I wanted to pass along who I ended up using to register my name and to host the site. Both the domain registrar and the hosting service are the best prices I have been able to find, and look like they should meet all my needs. I'll let you know if I encounter any unexpected surprises!

Domain Registrar: www.123cheapdomains.com--$13.95 per year! (You can transfer existing site registration to this company when it is time to renew your registration. Offers the same service as the $35/year companies do.) Company located in Davis, CA.

Website Hosting: addr.com--I chose the Silver package at $9.95/month. They have NO setup fee, 100 MB storage, 4 GB traffic, your own cgi bin, 24/7 free technical support. If you want to upgrade, their top Gold package for e-commerce which includes a shopping cart is only $14.95/month! They are located in Denver, CO and also have an office here in San Jose. I have written them 3 times with various questions to make sure I am getting what I think, and they have responded very quickly via e-mail to each one. They look very promising. :-) www.addr.com

From Sten:

  1. Acrobat Writer 4.0: $110 from www.pricewatch.com
  2. WS_FTP LE (Light Edition is heavy enough) free for personal use, from http://www.ipswitch.com/cgi/download_eval.pl?product=main The version is 5.08 and is only 690 K (should download fairly quickly.)
  3. Domain registrar www.gkg.net $9.95/year including email forwarding.
  4. www.TLDnames.com does the same for $15/year, or $99/10 years.
  5. ISP dial-up, www.frys.com --somewhat flaky and you need to be techie... $10/mo. after 3 free months.
  6. www.family-network.net is $13/mo. and has filter for porno. Tech support seems good.
  7. Photoshop 6.0 at $230 using www.pricewatch.com
  8. www.jc1.net is a Christian hosting service that has great support.

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