Making a web site can be fun but very frustrating
if you do not have the correct tools.

How To :

This page is designed to aid those of you who are new to the web and want to publish your website with Blue Ridge Web Designs.

It seems that a lot of people today are still intimidated by the Internet. Software to aid the New User in publishing their website abound and are supposed to make the process of making your presence on the web easy and painless. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Case in point: Frontpage XP

While Frontpage is said to be a great tool for the webmaster designing multiple sites, or sites that many webmasters will combine efforts on, (Frontpage is said to be great at coordinating the work of many people working on one huge project,) Frontpage can be daunting to many. It can have a very high learning curve and is certainly not cheap.

Dreamweaver is another WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor like Frontpage. Dreamweaver has the support of a huge base of professional web designers. Although Blue Ridge Web Designs does not endorse nor oppose either product, Dreamweaver is said to be the easier of the two to learn and to create a dynamic web presence.

Whatever your choice of HTML Editor, FTP client, or Telnet client, we at BRWD strongly feel that a very basic knowledge of HTML and interaction with your web server will be indispensable in adding to your success and enjoyment in placing your work on the World Wide Web.

WYSIWYG editors are very nice, often fancy, and easy to use (once you learn how) but what do you do when your WYSIWYG editor goes to the outhouse and leaves you holding the paper?

Your First Stop:

So, you want to make a Web Page! is an incredibly cool site that steps you through the process of creating your first web site. Also included in this free tutorial is a Frames tutor, a Tables tutor, and a Forms tutor. Totally easy and so helpful that even seasoned professionals use this site from time to time as reference.

Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide Lots of design information here.

Next:

A really good full featured editor is not a must. One could just use Notepad and make a really great design and functional site. But to make things just a bit easier visit www.arachnophilia.com and check out this Careware editor. While you're there browse around Pau'l site. It's full of great stuff!

From hard drive to web drive:

Once you have your site designed and coded it's time to upload it from your computer to our state of the art network of web server hardware.

CuteFTP is just one of many FTP clients available that have an easy to use Windows-like interface. Transferring files is as easy as drag & drop.

Two very important things to note:

If you are using Frontpage DO NOT USE AN FTP CLIENT!

Always remember to read the documentation!

Where no newbie has gone before:

At times it will be necessary to log into your account via Telnet.

Telnet is a way to access your web server as if it were sitting on your home computer. People who remember ye old days of DOS should feel quite comfortable at the "Telnet Prompt."

If you have Win95/98 then you already have a small Telnet terminal program on your system. Just click on Start, then Run, and in the dialogue box type in Telnet. When you are prompted for a "Host name" you should enter the domain name you have registered with Internic 
When you arrive at your server you will be asked for your Username and Password. Enter these just as they were given you in the mail you received from sales indicating that your account is on line. The Linux system is case sensitive so that USERNAME and username and uSeRnAmE are three different people.