I have decided on a way to close out this topic. Since I am really not very involved in web page design myself, I thought it might be a better idea to leave that to someone else. So, I am soliciting more experienced web developers to write guest columns on that subject - stay tuned.
To summarize where we are: To develop a web page you first have to get some space on the Internet - either through your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or by purchasing it from another online vendor. You might also consider getting your own domain name.
The next thing to do is to develop the actual web page "language", either by using an established web page development tool or by coding it by yourself.
Finally, you have to get the files to the space on the web that you have gotten. This is usually done using a program called FTP (File Transfer Protocol). FTP is also one of those programs that goes back to the very beginnings of the Internet, although it has been dressed up quite a bit. There are many FTP programs available as shareware or freeware on the Internet. Two of the more popular are Cute-FTP and WS-FTP. Some FTP programs use their own, unique user interfaces, and some emulate the Windows Explorer.
You first log on to your destination server. This requires that you know the name of the server, the user name assigned to you, and also the password. You should be given these when you get the space. Next, you transfer the files. You select files to be transferred from your hard drive (usually a list on the left side of the program window) and drag them to the destination (a list on the right side of the window). Some of the more advanced tools to generate webpages have the FTP program built in, along with automatic synchronization of files so you don't have to remember what you have changed after an update.
One question that comes up is that you may be asked whether to use ASCII or BINARY transfer. This dates back to the old, slow speed days of the Internet. If you were sending just text (not programs or graphics), you could save some transmission time by sending less bits. But today it just hardly matters. So, if you are given a choice, just select BINARY in all cases. This will ensure that the received file at the server is an identical copy of the file on your hard drive.
Now that you have actually created the webpage, you need to have somebody to look at it. It reminds me of the old philosophical question about whether a tree falling in the forest makes any sound if there is no one to hear it. Similarly, what good is a website if nobody knows its there? There is no easy answer here. Of course, tell your friends, and put a reference to your webpage in your email signature, but that is hardly enough. The secret is to get known by the web searching robots, or 'bots as they are called.
'bots are intelligent programs that crawl around the Internet looking for changes and references. They will look at your HTML source code for key words, or for a special HTMl tag called the META tag, which identifies keywords that are relevant to your website. If the 'bots find you, then you will appear when someone does a query on one of the Internet search sites, such as Google.
I hope that I have helped some of you on the road to developing your own website. Approach it as a learning experience, and most of all have fun doing it.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).