If you have completed lesson 1 and have played around with lesson 2 a bit, you should have a web page in the works. But a web page is only accessible to other folks surfing the web if you upload the file to a server, which is a computer connected to the Internet that "serves" web pages to you when you (as a "user") surf the web, looking for web sites. Server access then is obviously very important: it's what allows an HTML file to really become a web page that can be accessed by everyone else on the world wide web.While students here at EMU have access to a server through the VMS system (that's the one where students have their email too, the one with addresses that end @online.emich.edu), I can't recommend using it. When it comes to web pages, VMS is what I would describe as a "user hostile" computer system, one that is quirky and difficult for even techno-fluent folks to use. If you do know a lot about computers and are something of a masochist, you can learn all about putting up a web site on VMS by looking at their help site.
What are the alternatives to VMS?
Four other web options immediately come to mind:
- Geocities. This is a service that provides the server access for free web pages to anyone. They give you lots of space-- 20 megs-- and the interface for uploading files and setting up directories is very easy. There are some significant problems with Geocities, though. They make their money from advertising, so every time you bring up a Geocities web page, you also bring up advertising that appears in a separate window that is very annoying for those folks coming to visit your site. Plus, because the volume at Geocities is quite high, sometimes it can take a long time for pages to load.
- Another "free web page" service. There are a lot of other places to turn besides Geocities-- tripod and angelfire come to mind. I am less experienced with these services, but they are similar to Geocities: they're "free," but they also make their money by advertising on your page.
One very useful resource for finding out more about getting free web pages is "FreeWebspace.Net," which is a searchable directory of free web hosting companies. The site features lots of links and information to the many companies-- large and small, good and bad-- that provide free web server space. One last thing to keep in mind with the "free" option: you do get what you pay for. If reliability and flexibility in your web design are going to be important in your work, you might want to consider one of the other options I describe here.- Get an "emunix" account. For technical reasons I'm not going to go into right now, the unix-based "emunix" computer is much more user-friendly than the VMS system for setting up web sites. It's what I use for all my web sites, including this one. As I understand the rules for getting emunix accounts, all students can get permission to have an emunix account if they have a project and are going to be supervised by a teacher (like me). To find out more, go to the Learning Technologies offices in the lower level of the library.
- A commercial Internet service provider (ISP) of your own. There are a wide variety of local and national services that provide email, Internet access, and Web server access for less than $20 a month. This is especially true for all of you who have AOL accounts, which (for students at EMU) is a lot of you. While I don't know much about how AOL is set up, I do know that you can have a web site hosted by them. Personally, I feel that if you are paying a commercial ISP to get internet access, that company should give you information on setting up a web site on their server. If you are paying a company $20 or so (or more!) a month for Internet access and they don't provide server access, then I'd recommend switching companies.
Some Tips and Instructions for Different Server Options
Geocities Actually, this is just a link to their site. Geocities changes the way it does things too frequently for me to summarize them here. Fortunately, it's pretty easy to figure out and to walk folks through in class.
emunix Here are some instructions for getting started on emunix based on the instructions provided at www.emunix.edu
VMS If you're feeling brave, you can follow these instructions for getting your site up on VMS.
Back to the How-to-HTML Homepage | On to "Making Web Pages with HTML Editors"