Welcome to Web Site Basics

The Internet

Coming to Terms

• Server

  
  Your account is hosted on a remote server, a high-capacity computer that is connected to the Internet 24x7. The five different connection technologies used to access the Internet are listed in order here, from the slowest connection to the fastest.
  • Most home users have a dial-up connection that uses a conventional modem.
  • Some home users connect with a cable modem that uses a coaxial cable television network.
  • Some home users and many small businesses connect through a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) that uses standard telephone wiring to provide high speed transmissions.
  • Some businesses connect through an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). This technology uses a terminal adaptor (installed by your phone company) for digital voice and data transmission.
  • Medium and large size businesses and universities often use a T1 (or higher) connection, a technology that uses high-speed telephone wiring to produce rapid-rate, high-capacity transmissions.

• Modem

  Most computers are connected to the Internet through telephone lines. Because computers use digital technology (data packets) and telephones use analog technology (a continuous electronic current), a modem is necessary for translation across these lines.
  
  The word, modem, comes from modulate-demodulate. A modem converts digital data from computers into analog data while in transit over the line; the modem receiving the analog data converts it back into digital.

• World Wide Web

  The World Wide Web is a vast Internet library of Web pages—many millions of them by now, but who's counting? Each site is a collection of related pages identified by the domain.name in its Web address.

• URL

  The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the fancy name for a Web address. A browser uses the URL to locate a requested page. Let's dissect a fictional sample Web address:

  http ://www.hockeyharbor.com/products.

• http is the protocol that any computer can read and process. Other protocols include https and ftp.
• ://  tells the Web browser that the actual Web address (domain name) follows.
• www. stands for the World Wide Web. Don't forget the dot.
• hockeyharbor identifies the Web Site by name. The Web Site owner registers this part and the next part of the URL (hockeyharbor.com) as a domain name
• .com identifies the domain's top-level domain (TLD).
  
  Three letter combinations are general categories for Web Sites. You have probably seen addresses using .com, .gov, .org, and .net.
  
  Two letter combinations that either follow or replace the traditional three letter TLD in the URL are country codes, such as .de for Germany and .jp for Japan.
• /products indicates which page of the Web Site a user is requesting. Sometimes you will see a string of these separated by "/"s.

• Domain Name

  A domain name is an address that identifies the owner of a Web Site. Using hockeyharbor.com as an example, hockeyharbor identifies the name, and .com identifies the top-level domain.
  
  Domain name registration is not necessary for Web Site publication; however, it allows you to personalize your Web Site and have an e-mail address related to you instead of your Internet provider.

• Browser

  A browser is a software program like Netscape and Internet Explorer that finds and displays Web pages. You click hyperlinks (usually blue-underlined text) to move from page to page.

• Link

  Links are areas (text, buttons, or graphics) that you click to go from one page to another.

Create a Web Site

1. Select and install (download) a Web authoring program.
2. Complete its tutorial from beginning to end.
3. After reading the Layout and Design section on this page, plan and create your own Web Site just as you did in the tutorial.
4. Publish your Web Site to your server.

Install a Web Authoring Program

• Netscape® Composer® comes with Netscape Communicator® click the icon in your lower left navigation bar to open the program. Netscape does not supply its own tutorial, but we found one at the following address to be very helpful.
  
  http://www.angelfire.com/md2/webtutorial/
  
  
• Microsoft® FrontPage 2000® is available for purchase at Microsoft's Web Site. The following address provides a good tutorial.
  
  http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858021033.aspx

Complete the Tutorial  

Layout and Design

• A typical Web Site consists of a Home page and other pages, and sometimes has an Entry page before the Home page. The Entry page often acts as a gateway to the Web Site by requiring user identification.
  
  The Home page welcomes visitors and acts as the Table of Contents for your site. From the Home page you can go to other pages or even to other Web Sites. The following is a typical Web Site layout.

• Define your target audience or market; staying focused on your audience will help you decide what to include in and exclude from your Web Site content.
• Whenever possible, build your entire directory (folder) and file system for your Web Site before you add any content; it is easier to test and adjust design and smalltextation features before you fill the pages with information. If your entire Web Site contains 5 to 10 pages, you need only to create a folder for your text files and a folder for graphics files. Large Web Sites containing many Web pages often have several folders to help keep the information organized.
  
  You might find it helpful to actually draw pages on a whiteboard, blackboard, or to write out your ideas on pieces of paper and shuffle them around until the flow makes sense.
• Make your file names as short as possible, and devise a naming system you can easily remember. For example, a page containing seminar information could have semtitle.png, semlogo.gif, and seminfo.htm in the seminar folder.
• If you decide later to add another section to your Web Site, just create a new folder for additional files.
• You can link to existing files and graphics in a newly created section.
• Nothing beats tables for organizing the information you have. Your tutorial will explain how they are made and used.
• White space is nice; it's easy on the eye and helps guide a viewer through the information. Avoid cluttering a single Web page with too much information; instead, add another page.
• Select a font that is easy to read like Arial or Verdana.
• Avoid ALL CAPS TEXT. IT SEEMS TO BE SHOUTING AT YOU.
• While selecting colors, experiment until you find an attractive combination. Trial and error is the most common method for getting the look you want. For best results, select your colors from the browser-safe colors palette. This will ensure that they look the same on different operating systems and computers.
• Graphics are saved as image files with one of the four following file extensions:
  • .jpg - best for photographs and other images that contain lots of shading
  • .gif - best for flat fields of color having no shading, such as sketches and cartoon images
  • .png - designed to replace the gif format
  • .tif - best for gray-scale images

• Balance your use of graphics against the time it takes to display them. The larger the graphic, the longer it takes for the page to load.
• Test your Web Site by having someone proofread your text.  Get opinions from friends and family. They might raise issues that have not occurred to you.
• Check your links. Do they work? Broken links frustrate visitors.
• View your Web Site from both Netscape and Internet Explorer. View it from other browsers if you have access to them. Web Sites display a little differently on each browser.
• Keep your Web Site interesting and attractive by updating its content periodically. Always re-check links after making changes.

Publish Your Web Pages to the Remote Server

1. Start your Web browser.
2. Type http://your_company.com/ControlPanel/ in the address bar, then press Enter (replace "your_company.com" with your domain name). The Control Panel Login screen appears.
3. Type your user ID and password in the appropriate text boxes.
4. Click Login. Your Control Panel window appears with the What's New window displayed.
5. Click My Web Site from the drop-down list at the top of the page. The Web Site Status window appears.
6. Click the Web Site Utilities tab. The Backup Web Site window appears.
7. Click Edit Web Site. The www / htdocs directory appears.
8. Add, edit, and delete Web Site files, as desired.