After you have finished creating your site, there are a few things you should do before letting the world see it. The first is finding a place to put your documents. Another is choosing the right name for certain documents. Two other important things you need to do are to check your spelling and to check for broken links.
If your school system/district has a web server or web server access, you can probably get them to put your site on that server. Not everyone is that lucky, however. Luckily, there are several places on the internet that give away space for free. One is GeoCities and another is Tripod. If find Tripod to be the less restrictive of the two.
In order to set up a Tripod account, you need a valid e-mail address. If you don't already have one, you can also get one for free from places like MauiMail.com, NetAddress.com, HotMail.com, Yahoo.com, Infoseek.com, etc. My favorite is NetAddress.com because the servers are faster and you don't need to use the web interface to access your mail because it is a POP server.
Browser software has some built in conventions when it comes to document names for a site. Let's say that your username is burney and the location of your site is at http://www.bc.edu/~burney/. If a user types that URL in the browser, the browser will come up with an index of all pages located at that site. Most often, however, you don't want users to see everything about your site.
If you name a document default.html, index.html, welcome.html, or main.html, when the user types in http://www.bc.edu/~burney/, the browser will bring them to that document, and not bring up an index. It is usually good practice to have a main page to your site with one of the above names. From that page you can link to everywhere else in your site.
Please note: Which document name is the default depends on the server. Most servers use index.html as their default page. You can check with your ISP for details.
You are going to spell wordz rong in your website, especially if you're creating your documents after a long day at school. If you are using a program like Claris Home Page, checking your spelling is easy. Just select Check Spelling from the Edit menu. If you are using SimpleText, there are many stand alone spell checkers which can check spelling in a SimpleText file. However, such spell checkers will probably think that <HTML> is a misspelling.
If all else fails, you can always print up a copy and get out your red pen! =||:'o
One of the most annoying things about surfing the web is finding an interesting link and then clicking on it only to find that it is "broken;" that is, not connected to another document. One way to check your links is to go through all of your documents manually checking each link and making sure all images are accounted for. For larger sites this can become incredibly frustrating.
If you use the program Adobe Site Mill or Claris Home Page 3.0 to generate your site, it can automatically check for broken links and fix them when necessary.
If you don't use those programs, however, don't give up hope. There is a great shareware utility called BigBrother that will automatically check all of your links for you. You have to fix them yourself, but at least you don't have to search them out (and the price is right)
If you have direct access to the ISP's computer (or the Web Server), you can manually put the files onto the computer, just as you would copy files from a floppy disk to a hard disk.
To delete files, you use a similar process.
Most people don't have that access, though. The typical way to put your site on the web is via FTP, File Transfer Protocol. Using a program such as Fetch, you dial into your ISP's (Internet Service Provider's) computer, enter your user ID and a password, and then upload your files to their computer. Uploading is the opposite of downloading.
Each ISP has different ways of allowing their customers to upload material. You should contact them for detailed information and instructions. The general procedures for uploading via Fetch and Claris Home Page are given below.
Please Note: If you get really interested in creating web pages, there is a much better FTP program called NetFinder. It is a smooth macintosh application with drag and drop capabilities, as well as support for partial uploads/downloads.
Once your site is on the web, you can contact various Internet Search sites such as AltaVista, Infoseek, Excite, or Yahoo! so that they can add your site to their indices. That way, someone looking for information on acorns could find your acorn homepage.
The first thing you need to do to upload via FTP using fetch is to get the Fetch program. It is on the disks which came with this manual. You can also click below to download it.
The following information is adapted from the IT documentation Boston College provides to its students who wish to place their home pages on the BC Web Site via FTP.
1. After installing Fetch on your
hard drive, launch the application. 
2. The first window to
appear will be the New Connection window, which will request
information about what server to connect to, your User ID and your
password. In the Host option, type in the domain name of your ISP's
web server, in the User ID option, type in your username, and in the
Password option, type in your ISP provided password. The Directory
option should be left blank unless you are advised otherwise by your
ISP. Finally, click on the OK button to connect to the web server.
For this workshop, our site is on a free server called Tripod. The host computer is at "ftp.tripod.com", the user ID is "lhs_workshop" and the password is "school". Leave the Directory box blank. Click OK.
3. The next window to
appear will be the FTP dialogue. In this window you will need to
double click on the folder which contains your directory on the
server. Your ISP will tell you where on the server you need to
be.
Go to the Directories Menu and select Create New Directory. Type in your last name (lowercase) and click OK. Double click on the folder that has your name on it. This is where you can put all of you pages and images.
4. Once you are in
your directory on the server, you can add and delete files. To add a
file to the server, click on Put File...
You can also select Put Directories and Files from the Remote menu...
5. This will bring
up a dialogue box, asking you to navigate to the file you wish to
place on the server. Locate the desired file and click Open.
If you use the put files command as mentioned above, you can place many files and even folders full of files at the same time.
6. Another dialogue
box will appear asking you in what format to place the file on the
server. Select Text in the the Format pull down, and click OK. This
will place your file on the server. If you are placing other items on
the server such as images the format should be binary or raw data.
You can proceed in this manner until all of your HTML documents are
on the server.
Make sure that Text format is selected for text documents, and Binary is selected for Other types of documents (images, sounds, etc.)
That's it. Once all your files are placed, you can use Netscape to go to http://members.tripod.com/~lhs_workshop/yourlastname/ to see your pages.
Uploading Using Claris Home Page
With Claris Home Page, it is incredibly easy to upload via FTP. You can have the software upload your entire site at once, saving you the pain of doing it file by file as with Fetch.
After you've placed all of the documents in your site into a folder, select new ->site from the file menu in Home Page. Save the site file in the folder with your documents. A screen like that below will then appear.
FTP settings:
Server Name: In this text box, enter the name of the server you are uploading to, i.e., ftp.tripod.com, as above.
User Name: In this box enter your user name for the site (get from ISP) in our case lhs_workshop
Remote Directory: Some ISP's require you to place your site in a particular place on their computer. At BC it is necessary to place your site in a folder called www. Your ISP can provide you with the information to place in this box. For Tripod use your last name for the directory that was created above.
Before Upload: Claris Home Page can automatically consolidate your site. That is, it can gather all image files and others and group them into your site. If you've developed your site correctly and have everything in one folder, the "never consolidate" option should be selected. If you've slacked off, however, Home Page can try to help you fix the problems.
Image Policy:
If you choose to have the program consolidate your site, you can ask it to place all images either with the document they're used in or in a folder called whatever you decide to name it in the "image folder" box.
When you are ready to Upload your site, click on the Upload Site
button. The dialog box below will pop up. Enter your Password and
click OK. Your site will then be uploaded painlessly.
There are too many online resources to mention, but a good listing of them can be found on Infoseek. Just click on where it says HTML under Internet.
Two good places for educators interested in the Internet to look at are Teachers Net and Classroom Connect.
Other sites of interest about creating content for the internet are:
If you become very interested in web development, you may wish to join an e-mail mailing list such as the Apple Net Authoring List. Check out Apple's site for more details (http://www.apple.com/)
There are thousands of books concerning various aspects of the internet, so just a few words of advice.
The best texts I have read come from O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. They are easy to spot because of their distinctive covers, featuring different animals such as Koalas and a Javan Rhinoceros. Their definitive guides to HTML and JavaScript are a must read for anyone serious about working with the internet.
The worst texts I have read are the "_________ for Dummies" books. I find them poorly organized and lacking in emphasis on important matters, choosing instead to focus on trivialities. Enough said.
Some books include CD's and Floppy Disks which contain valuable resources so shop around.
****NOTE: Most of these books are very expensive ($40-$70). See if they have the book you want or something comparable to it at your local library before making such an investment. The Minuteman Library Network has an extensive collection of computer literature, and your library may as well.****