When
starting a homepage, the first thing you must do
is to go to one of the servers who offer free
homepages and register your account. The rest of
this page will describe sign-up procedures for
them and the features each offers for building
your site or homepage. Consider what you have in
mind for your homepage and read the reviews on
all servers before deciding which to choose. At
the bottom of the page is a summary comparison
table of the servers discussed. Be sure to click
on "MORE SERVER REVIEWS" for additional servers.
NOTICE: Some of the procedures discribed here have changed. Not
only that, but I am having trouble recommending any of these free servers
now. Last year, Geocities engaged in the wholesale deletion of Webtv
user owned websites and this year Tripod did the same thing. Talkcity
and Angelfire have remained static but it's only a matter of time with them
too.
If you value your work and your website and can afford to pay $5.00 to
$10.00 a month for it then build your site at either WTV-Zone or Domania. I've had favorable reports on Terrashare which is a free server if you can't pay for your web space.
Click on "TRIPOD above to go to the
sign-up page. Fill out the simple form and after
you submit it you will go to a page with a
welcome message. Just below this message are
three editing options in the "Homepage Studio".
This is a new Homepage Studio for
computer users only and will not work for Webtv.
If you are using Webtv then
YOU MUST GO TO THE OLD HOMEPAGE HOUSEKEEPER
which Tripod has kept on line just for Webtv
users. To get there, scroll down twice from the
top of the page and look on the left side of the
screen. HOMEPAGE HOUSEKEEPER will be
listed there. When you click on it you will go
to a page that looks very much like the one you
just left. At the bottom of the first screen you
will see the Homepage Studio with the three
editing options. Tripod has two methods
available for building a homepage. "QUICK PAGE"
is for the preformated, no html editor and
"CUSTOM PAGE" is for the html editor. To the
right of "CUSTOM PAGE" is the "EDIT" option.
This can be used to edit a page you have already
built. Choose your page building option
depending on your HTML skills and click to go to
either the QUICK PAGE BUILDER or the
CUSTOM PAGE EDITOR. If you chose QUICK
PAGE you will be prompted and given choices of
page format, colors, and information to put into
each section of the page. Just follow the
instructions there. If you chose CUSTOM PAGE
then you will probably know what to do with the
blank page you are given. If you need help here
see my HTML HELP FOR WEB PAGES on this
site. After entering your information in either
editor be sure to SAVE IT by clicking
SAVE at the bottom of the QUICK PAGE
BUILDER or USE THIS HTML at the bottom of
the CUSTOM PAGE EDITOR.
ACCESSING YOUR FILE MANAGER
At tripod this is called your"Homepage
Housekeeper". This is where your files are
listed. From the QUICK PAGE BUILDER click on
HOMEPAGE HOUSEKEEPER in the options pannel
near the top of the page. From the CUSTOM PAGE
EDITOR after saving you page, scroll down once on
the next page. There you will find a link to
the URL of your page. Click there to view your
page or go to the next link down "RETURN TO
HOUSEKEEPER" to go to your file manager.
Be sure to SAVE THE HOMEPAGE HOUSEKEEPER
page to your favorites for future use. By saving
the Homepage Housekeeper" page and using it to go
to your files later you can avoid getting into
the wrong homepage studio by mistake and bypass
the preliminary pages. There should be one file
listed in your directory called "index.html". It
will be shown as a "QUICK PAGE" or a "TEXT OR
HTML" page. To the right of the file type are
some options. If you want to edit your own html
in a QUICK PAGE click on "convert" to change the
file type to "text or html". Once converted it
cannot be changed back. Above your file list is
a pulldown that says "Create a Quick Page". By
clicking on this you will see other options such
as "Create a Custom page" and "Create a
subdirectory" etc. Use this pulldown when you
want to add a page or a subdirectory to your
site. To edit your page just click "edit" in the
right hand column afer the file name. You will
be taken to the proper editor for your page
format. Tripod offers subdirectories and a full
page html editor but does require ftp client
software for using their uploader so WebTv'rs
will have to use a transloader to move or upload
files to Tripod. Tripod is fairly easy to use
and beginners should not have too difficult a
time there. ALLOCATED DISK SPACE: 11 Mbytes
It's easy to register at Talk City, I just don't
remember much about it but I'll give you what I
can. Also, they have changed the pages since I
registered there so I will just give you the key
things. Just fill out the enrollment form and
after you submit it you will be asked to log in
and start your page. The first starting point is
at the "WALKTHROUGH" page where they discribe
their page building tools. At talk city you can
choose to use the "Power Tools" editor for a
preformatted, no html page or select "Master
Tools" to write your own html codes in the full
page editor. When you select which tools you
want to use you can start writing your page. Be
sure to save your work when finished by clicking
on the SAVE button at the bottom. You can
then elect to go to your file manager. At Talk
City this
is called your "Web Site Manager". Things to
note about talk city are that they do not provide
for subdirectories so all of your files must be
in the main director. This can become a problem
if you have a lot of files. It is possible to
create subs there but it requires the use of the
transloader to do it and they will not be shown
in your file manager. Another inconvienence I
have noticed is that when you view one of your
pages from the file manager, it is displayed in a
frame on their page therefor you cannot use you
"go-to, show last" to copy the url of your page
for pasting later in another place. They do have
good counter options and a nice guestbook which
are found in the "applications manager" at the
bottom of the page. You will also find an ftp
uploader caled EZ TRANSFER and a PHOTO UPLOADER,
both are WebTv friendly. By using the EZ
TRANSFER uploader you can transfer any file from
anywhere on the web to your site and avoid using
the very busy transloaders. If you have another
site on another server, by transfering you
"index.html" page to talk city you will
automatically mirror your entire site with one
opertion and not have to enter each individule
file. Talk city is a good place for beginners to
build a basic homepage. ALLOCATED DISK SPACE:
12 Mbytes
This one was a real
pain to sign up for. There is a lot of
information to fill out and when you finally get
to the page where you choose your address in the
neighborhood you have selected, the submit button
is likely to send you back to the same page you
just left. You will see a message there that
says that someone else already moved into that
address and to choose another from the list
shown. Your chosen address will still be on the
list. I tried to get past this road block on
three different occasions and finally got in so
don't make any other plans for the day you choose
to register there. They then ask you to log into
your account with your name and password and that
will take you to a page where you will choose
your editing preference. The "basic editor" is
your preformated, no html editor and the
"advanced editor" is your html editor. After
selecting which editor you wish to use you will
then be taken to your file manager.
At Geocities this is called your "file Manager"
and it is a very busy place with a lot of text,
links and opptions. You have to scroll down two
of three times just to see your files. When you
find them there will be only one file there named
"index.html". If you have not already started
writing information in the editor this page will
be blank. To start editing, check the box next
to the file then scroll down and choose either
EDIT, you can then start
writing your page. Geocities has a full page
html editor plus a "preview" option before you
save. No WebTv friendly uploader here so you'll
have to use a transloader for your uploads. Note
also that Geocities has very long URLs for your
site address. You may want to register with a
referrer service which Geocities will provide for
a shorter URL.
ALLOCATED DISK SPACE: 11 Mbytes NOTE: Geocities has just merged with Yahoo so
the above procedures may have changed. The
geocities file manager has remained the same but
registration is now handled through Yahoo so
sign-up procedures may have changed. What I
can tell you is that now when you login you are
sent to a second page with no title. You have to
scroll down to the section called "MEMBERS TOOLS"
then find "File Manager and click on it.
This will send you to another page which is still
not your File Manager but has a link to enter it
where you have to click again. Then you will get
to your file manager. When you view any of your
files you will find that Yahoo has plastered
advertising and promotion banners on your page.
You will also find that Yahoo has altered your
source documents and installed their own scripts
on the html page that you have written to
generate their ad banners. Because of these
changes made by Yahoo I have removed this site
from Geocities and now host it on The Globe. The
only thing I miss is Geocities full screen html
editor. Do I recommend Yahoo Geocities to
newcommers? I wouldn't recommend it now to
anyone. If Yahoo leaves then I may come back.
At Angelfire after
you have registered and logged in you will be
sent to your file directory where your files are
shown. At Angelfire this is called your "Web
Shell" Of coarse you haven't created any files
here yet but
you might find a file called "index.html" which
has been created for you. Below the file list
are your file options. "Create/edit" will take
you to the preformatted, no html text editor
where you can write to your page without using
html. "Advanced" will take you to the html text
editor where you can write your own html codes
and text. To edit an existing file you must
first check the check box next to the file name.
Registration at Angelfire is easy and the file
manager is clean and well organized and easy to
use. On the down side of Angelfire you should
note that they do not allow for subdirectories
except one for images. Also the text editor is
not full screen wide because of a side bar on the
left side. Transloading to Angelfire is a little
tricky and requires an extra step to get the file
from the ftp server into your files. This is
covered on my Transloading Page This site
though computer friendly, is not particularly
Webtv friendly in the ftp department although it
does have a photo uploader which the WebTv Plus
can use. Angelfire give you only 5 Mbytes of
disk space which is less than half of the space
allowed by the other servers. I can
recommended Angelfire for beginners.
ALLOCATED DISK SPACE: 5 Mbytes
