Business Support Internet

Creating your web site is not as difficult as you might think. If you are really interested in creating your web pages yourself instead of consulting a Web developer, then you may want to look at two options: coding your web pages by "hand", or using an HTML editor.

Coding your pages by "hand"!

Web pages are written in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), a programming language that is not difficult to learn. There are many free tutorials available on the Internet. You may want to have a look at http://www.htmlgoodies.com. The site provides very well organized tutorials for beginners at no charge. The term "coding by hand" refers to the programming of a web page by entering HTML tags manually in a text editor like Notepad.

HTML editors!

HTML editors have become more and more popular over the last two years, especially WYSIWYG ones. WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get!) editors provide the user with a graphical interface to visually lay out their pages without having to do any programming himself. Users who are new to HTML find these WYSIWYG editors especially useful. Please find below a list of the most popular WYSIWYG editors. Most companies provide a free trial version for download on their web site.

• http://www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver -- Macromedia Dreamweaver
• http://www.adobe.com/services/golive/ -- Adobe Golive
• http://www.symantec.com/vpage/ -- Symantec Visual Page
• http://www.allaire.com/services/homesite/ -- Allaire Homesite
• http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/ -- Microsoft FrontPage

The final step: uploading your pages!

Once you have created your web pages and saved them on your computer, you will have to "publish" them. This involves uploading your site to our server, using your favorite FTP client. Make sure that you place all files in the "htdocs" directory and your first page is named "index.html" in small letters and without quotation marks.

For instructions on how to upload, please consult one of the following documents:

• FTP instructions for Windows
• FTP Instructions for the Macintosh

Other sites that may help you to create your web pages:

• http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey -- Webmonkey
• http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual -- Yale Web Style Guide
• http://www.webreference.com/ -- Webreference.com