As my youngest would say..."Let's get ready to RUMBLE!"

SO...you want a homepage but don't have a clue how to get or make one. Well, first, right click the musical note on top of this page and listen to the music. I did this to make a point! The music on your pages should enhance, NOT annoy! I think you get the point! Now right click again and TURN IT OFF! That is...unless you like it, in which case, I don't have to hear it...so leave it on!

This is going to take a little preparation and some time. Make up your mind NOW, that you are going to be doing ALOT of reading and then much "trial and error". This is the very best way to learn HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). There is a link on this page to the terminology of the web and of HTML. You'll be speaking it in no time!

FREE WEBSPACE

There are many FREE services out there, that offer you webspace for your site, and, in return, they are able to place and run ads on your pages for this "free" service. One of the worst offenders in this practice is Geocities. I really like the feeling of community that Geocities fosters so I put up with their slow servers and those darned, annoying pop-up ads that they place on their sites. According to them, you can get rid of the pop-up ads if you install a full time GEOGUIDE on the pages where you want the pop-ups to disappear. Unfortunately, this doesn't always work; and good luck getting an intelligent answer to any questions you might have about WHY it doesn't work. It is always YOUR fault! And due to inept web authoring and use of Java Scripting (which you have NO control over) you will continually get Java Script error messages on your pages....it's not you, so don't worry, just say yes and it will go away.

Each of these services offers what amounts to a "file manager" function, where you upload your graphics, midi files and HTML to their server (your directory). This is the "home" of all the files that will make up your homepage. Another suggestion is to remove any graphics or midi files that you may have uploaded and aren't using. They take up valuable space when you need it most. Later, I'll post a little lesson on FTP... don't ask now...just use their utilities for the moment.

CONTENT

The first thing you need to do is to decide on the CONTENT of your page. Do a basic outline of what you want your page to convey to the people that visit it. Do you have a hobby that you want to share? Do you have an interesting job or maybe just want to make new friends on the Net and share your pride in your family or your love of your pets with everyone??

Next you will need to set up how you want your page to look...backgrounds as opposed to solid colors, etc...fonts, font styles, sizes, etc. (For the total newbie, fonts are the text that appears on your pages.) Rule of thumb is that you want to make your pages as easy on the eyes of the beholder as possible.

Second rule is that you want to make your pages load as quickly as possible because Internet users are notorious for being impatient with pages that have long load times and will go on to something else, never having seen that wonderful page you posted about your kitten, Muffy or your Pomeranian Caesar! Another piece of advice is regarding Java Applets. The key to Java Applets is "less is more". If you have many java applets running on your pages, woe to you! They will be slower than molasses in December and you may get NASTY email about "crashed" browsers and your questionable parentage!

I want to suggest that you go and download a copy of ARACHNOPHILIA. This is an excellent HTML editor and it helps you tremendously even if you never use all of its functions or utilities. It easily helps you to set the background colors and attributes on the most basic level and will also allow you ease with which to change your backgrounds, colors, graphics and text. Best of all...it's FREE.

My next suggestion is that you go to the page within my "castle" and download some of the excellent background files and graphics that I have placed at your fingertips. These are quality at a very reasonable price.....FREE, except for a little link of recognition to their authors! How hard can that be to do??

LIST AND RECAP

Ok, let's get started. Below are some links to files you should get and the services where you will go to obtain your free webspace. Choose wisely...it's a lot of work to change services. You should have already gotten some good BASIC HTML tutorials from the sources on my Witch Hall page. Print them out and use them! If not then go BACK and get them first!