First things first, we need a topic. How about we make a web page with the topic of the newspaper column, Florence.Com.
Next thing is to pick a place to put the web site. I have found over the course of many sites and many months that Angelfire is the easiest host to work with, so let's go to Angelfire and get this thing started. The site address for Angelfire is Http://www.angelfire.com.
Here at the Angelfire page we have two choices. The first it to register to get a free web page and the second is to log in if you are all ready have the free site.
Well we need to register and get a new site so let's hit the register button. The register page has the rules and regulations for the free sites.
After reading the rules it is time to name our page. There is a blank here to fill in with the name you want. Sometimes the name is all ready taken so we may have to do this a couple of times to get a name and address that is all ours. Let's try using the co in the first part of Colorado and the name Florence in the second part and see if we get lucky on our first try to name our new site.
Hey, we hit it lucky and got our name on the first try. Just fill in the rest of the form and we will move on to actually making our page. I hope you are having fun. I am.
Now this page is called the Web Shell by Angelfire. You will notice that there is all ready a page specified under files. It is your index page or home page of any site. Every site has one, but Angelfire makes it easy to work with this one. Let's hit the little create/edit button under the file menu and see what we can do.
There are three simple steps in Angelfire to making a ready made page. First one is to pick your editor. That is pretty simple. Let's stay with the Basic editor and leave the advanced to the pros.
Next we have six different layouts for our page to chose from. I am going to choose the first one so that you can what the Standard home page will look like.
Then we have to chose the colors and styles that we want. Personally I prefer the white on black pages and this is style number six.
Then we press submit and the next screen helps us personalize our layout to make it more our type of thing. This is done with 12 basic steps. Don't worry, it is easy and all spelled out for you.
I already chose my colors in step one so I don't have to do anything here. In step two, I want the background just to be black so I will leave that alone also. We are going to center the page in step three so that I will appear in the center of the screen. Step four is to pick the font size-let's leave it at three. Step five is to type in a headline that appears on our page. Let's type in Florence.Com and center it with the biggest headline there is.
Step six is to find an image to put on the page. Let's get one from Angelfire. Just hit on the words that are highlighted in blue and it takes us to an image library. Let's get an animated one so that the page will have a little life to it. Okay, I pick the spinning globe. Now I have to write down the file name and type it in to the web site editor in the space they have provided.
Seven is for a list of things. Let's list the things that Florence.Com is trying to do. I am only putting down three things but I think they fit.
So now we go on to the next part. Let me see this is step 8. We all have favorite web sites, and this is the place to put their addresses so that people who come to this site can see our favorite sites and go to them. Now is the time, in step nine, that we get to write what we want out page to say. You don't have to know the HTML code for this but if you do, you can use it of course. I won't use if for what I am going to type now.
Okay now my page is all put together. Steps 10 through 12 are just a few other questions we have to answer. Do we want a hit counter? Yes, of course, we want to see how many people come to out page. Do we want to put our e mail address on the page? Well, that is a personal call but I always like to get comments on my pages so I said yes. Now we hit the save button and it will save our page and take us back to the Web Shell.
Are you ready to see our finished product? Just go to the top of the Web Shell and you will see that the page is listed in blue. Click on the blue and let's see what we have. Well it looks pretty good to me. The whole thing, including the writing of the column took me about 35 minutes.
See now that isn't so hard.
Keep on surfing and use your e mail, it is fast, effective, and just plain fun.
Christine Dunne April 1999
