Table of Contents
What is a Homepage/Website?
How Do I start building a Homepage?
Where can I build a website?
OK - I've found a host - Now What?
I've got my topic and info. Now what?
How do I upload to my website?

WHAT IS A HOMEPAGE/WEBSITE?

A website is a collection of information, which, through the use of Hyperlinks (more on this later) can be linked to other sources of information. It can more easily be compared to a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Book. Each page contains a part of a story, and can be compared to a webpage. At the bottom of each page, you can decide where to turn to next. Thus, each page can link to others, and the whole book binds the pages together into a website (although web pages can link to pages outside the original site)

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HOW DO I START BUILDING A HOMEPAGE?
As for how to build one, I will taylor this information for WebTV users. Computer users now have a host of programs at their disposal, specifically designed to build webpages (Even some word-procesors will do the job now!). We WebTV'ers don't have these programs at our disposal, so we need to rely on the resources offered on the web. Fortunately, there are places we can go to build our sites!!! So your first step into designing a website is finding a host server (those kind folks who let you use their disk space to build your site) on which to build you webpage

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WHERE CAN I BUILD A WEBSITE?

You have many choices, but there are four principal sites where you can build your website from WebTV.

The first is the Pagemaker Utility found in your 'Community' box, accessible from your opening screen. There is an easy to follow tutorial on how to use the Pagebuilder, so we won't go into detail here. Pagebuilder will help you build a good looking, quality website. Although you only get 3 Mb of disk space for your site, this is VERY ample for most personal homepages, and even for many semi-professional pages. It's drawbacks are 3 Mb disk space, which can be used up rapidly if your website is loaded with pictures or sound files, and that it is not 100% customizable, as some of the other sources are. This is a good option for your first website - it will give you the feel of what is going on, and walk you through the building process step by step.


The next three sites for building your websites are Tripod (where this site is located), Angelfire, and Geocities. Each of these sites offers 11 Mb or more of disk space for your website - Enough space for just about any site. Each of these sites offers both a quick-start website (similar to the pagemaker on WebTV), and a fully customizable version (for those people with a good working knowledge of HTML). Each location has it's advantages and drawbacks. We encourage you to check out each of them before you make your final decision. Use the links below to check out the sites mentioned above

Tripod Angelfire Geocities

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OK - I'VE FOUND A HOST SERVER - NOW WHAT?

The next part of designing your webpage requires no computer at all. Now you need to decide what your website will be about. Is it a personal page? Is it an informational page (like this one)? Or are you selling something? The sky is the limit!

Now that you have decided on a topic, you should give yourself an idea of what you would like to include on your site. If it is a personal homepage, what information about yourself would you like to include (and do you want to add pictures to it)? If it is informational, what information would you like to convey. You get the idea. It is a good idea to have a general plan of what you want to do with the page before building it.

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I'VE GOT MY TOPIC & INFO. NOW WHAT?

Now it's time to start building!!!! If you are using WebTV's pagemaker, enter that. If you are building on another server, log into your account, and choose your method of page development - quickstart (The host will help you build the page - you just add your own info at the prompts) or custom (requires a knowledge of HTML code - visit our HTML tutorialfor more information). You have now begun the building process. Web Pages are generally top-down. That is, the first element you add to your page will appear on the top of the page, and each element added will be below that one. Visit our HTML tutorialfor methods of positioning elements on your page. When you have finished a session of adding your info or HTML code, MAKE SURE to hit the DONE, or SAVE, or USE HTML button!!!! Otherwise, you will lose everything you just added to your page!!!!
[author's note: I can't tell you how many times I forot to hit the SAVE button building this site!! Nothing can be more frustrating than adding whole sections of code and then having to start them all over again!!!]

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HOW DO I UPLOAD TO MY WEBSITE?

Congratulations on coming this far with your website!! Uploading graphics is a simple task, made possible by the use of ftp (file transfer protocol). On WebTV, we call it transloading, but it is the same concept. There are many different transloaders out there, but the two we prefer are
The Freeloader
and
Star Boulevard Transloading Service
Both are more effective when placed on one of your F-keys, but it is not necessary. To upload/transload something to your website, go to the page (usually a picture) that you want to copy onto your site. If you have one of the transloading services on your F-keys, hit that button now. If not, hit your info button, and write down the url of the picture you want to copy, and then access the transloading service. If you have used an F-key to access the transloader, the url of the picture will automatically be loaded in. If not, you will have to type it in manually. There is an excellent Tutorial For The Freeloader that covers all aspects of using this service. We have not been able to find a tutorial for Star Boulevard, but if you read the Freeloader Tutorial, you will learn everything you need to use their transloader. Please note - the tutorial is NOT part of Homepage Resources, nor was it written by us. You will need to use the BACK button on your browser or your RECENT button to return to our site.

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