Weaving Your Own Web                               

Building your own website needn't be as daunting as you would imagine.

Be it a personal or business related site, putting up a 'Web presence' can be a daunting task to the uninitiated.  Going to a professional can be an expensive business, costing anything between a few hundred and a few hundred thousand pounds - although the latter would probably include a lot of high end programming work in SQL, XML and various other acronyms.  However bringing yourself up to speed to the level of the former end of that scale is remarkably easy.

If designing a web site, unless you want to learn HTML, which I suggest you might try as it's actually very easy and you'll pick up the basics within a few hours, you should use what is called a WYSIWYG, pronounced Wizzy-Wig, or What You See Is What You Get, editor.  There are many out there, some free some not and they generally involve a graphical interface that allows you to drag, drop and place your content and so design your page.  The most basic is probably a word processing application, such as Microsoft Word, which while not strictly a web development or design tool, will give the user the option to 'Save As' HTML.  Both Netscape and Internet Explorer come with free WYSIWYG editors too.  These are specifically made with Web design in mind and also allow you to play around with Web features that would not be supported by your word processor.

Hosting is the point where you want to publish to the World Wide Web.  Fortunately there are numerous hosts out there that will give you your little corner on the Web for free, such as Geocities.com and Tripod.com, in return for which they automatically insert adverts on each of your pages.  When uploading to these, it's important however not to get the relative location of your various pages and images out of sync. Remember that your browser only knows to display an image in your page because your page tells it to do so and where the image is relative to itself.  The same is true for links to other pages within your site.

One problem with the free hosting companies is the address you'll be given.  This will often be a long an convoluted one that will snugly fit on any business cars, so long as you don't mind none of your other details fitting.  Registering a dot com address has become easier in recent years, it's possible now to get your own address for free, through companies such as Namezero.com, who will forward people to your real location, the one with the really long address.  On the point of Namezero.com, I should point out that while it's free you don't actually own your dot com address, they do.  You just get permission and the facilities to use it.  To actually own a dot com address you will still have to pay, although this can be as cheap as £16 or so, through sites like Joker.com.

But ultimately one should ask why would you want a Web site? You might want to set up a special interest or hobby site, or offer your services as a Web developer - and if you can do, not even master, the above you can and be no worse than many already doing so.

One of the most useful reasons to do so, I've found, is to put your curriculum vitae on line.  While not applicable to every career or profession, it's becoming a common practice, in particular in IT related careers.  Sending an email with the address of your CV to a potential employer can ultimately save you a fortune in stamps and printing.

And on a basic level that's all there is to it.

Useful Links:

http://www.geocities.com/

http://www.angelfire.com/

http://www.joker.com/

Web Development Information

Free Hosting

Domain Name Registration

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