How Do I Set Up a Personal Web Page?

All of Infobahn International, Inc.'s dial-up accounts include a personal web page. Your personal web page can be simple or as complex as you choose to make it (Assuming, of course , that the total size of all the files used by the web page does not exceed 5 MB). Your personal web page can include graphics and executable content (CGI programs or even Java) in addition to plain text.

Before you create your own web page you need one of two things: either some knowledge of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) or a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) web page design program, such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe PageMill or Claris HomeP age. If you have knowledge of HTML, then you already have the one tool necessary to create you page: a text editor that can save files as ASCII text (examples are Windows Notepad and TeachText or SimpleText on the Macintosh). You may also need a graphic s program that can save images in GIF or JPEG format if you wish to put images on your web page.

Regardless of how you create your page, you need to place it in the appropriate area on our server. We'll start with the crudest method first -- using a text-based File Transfer Protocol (FTP) tool, such as the one bundled with Windows 95 and Windows NT (If you have a graphical FTP tool, such as WS-FTP, CuteFTP or Fetch, you would carry out the same series of steps, only without the need to actually type the commands). Here's how to get started (what you should type is in bold-face. We also use a sample username of jsmith):

1. Start your FTP program (This usually can be done by typing ftp and then pressing "Enter").

2. Open a connection to the Infobahn FTP server by typing open ftp.icubed.com and the pressing "Enter".

3. When prompted for a username, enter your E-mail username (i.e. jsmith) and then press "Enter".

4. Enter your E-mail password when prompted for a password and then press "Enter".

5. You should now be in your home directory (i.e. /home/users/jsmith). To see the path, type pwd and then press "Enter".

6. Get a listing on the files in your home directory by typing ls and then pressing "Enter".

7. Look for a file "public_html". If you have it, go to step 9.

8. Create the directory for your web page by typing mkdir public_html and then pressing "Enter".

9. Change to the web directory by typing cd public_html and then presssing "Enter".

10. Type the command ascii, then press enter to put FTP in text-transfer mode.

11. Upload a file "example.html" by entering the command put example.html, then pressing "Enter".

12. Repeat the previous step for each HTML or Perl-based CGI script you need to place on the server.

13. Put FTP in binary-transfer mode by typing the command binary and then pressing "Enter".

14. Upload a graphics file "example.gif" by entering the command put example.gif, then pressing "Enter".

15. Repeat the previous step for each graphic, binary executable CGI or Java class file to be placed on the server.

16. When you are finished uploading files, exit FTP and close the connection by typing bye and then pressing "Enter".

(If your E-mail username were jsmith, use http://www.icubed.com/~jsmith)