FJD1.com

1. Preliminary steps

Basic computer skills and resources are needed to begin.

Your local school or public library may provide online access for those who do not yet own a computer. You should begin by familarizing yourself with the basic operation of your computer, and its programs.

To effectively use the tools at your disposal you should begin by reading the tutorials and help files associated with a given program. You will need to understand how to use a text editing program. You shold also gain skill in the use of graphics software. Software to create music and record may also be added to your list of programs to learn.

Programs are run under an operating system (which is responsible for memory management of your computer.) You will need to have an understanding of its use. Be able to: move, copy, delete and create files and folders. Your computer's operating system should have help available to you. You should be able to install and uninstall software, as well as use your disk drives for storage and retrevial of data and programs.

Basic skills in hand, you are now ready to install the software which will be needed to work online.

Basic software aquisition.

• Text Editor
  If you are a Windows user, you may find the program Notepad to be all that is needed to begin writing your own web pages. (Assuming you know what to write.) Other text editors you may find helpful include CodeMax which permits editing of columns of text and SynEdit which is capable of replacing blocks of text through many open files at once.
  (See TU Archives [text editors] for more information.)

• Graphics Editor
  Again, Windows users, may find the program Paint to be all that is needed to begin creating graphics for your web pages. (Assuming you can draw with a mouse.)
  (See TU Archives [graphics] for more graphics software.)

• Internet Service Provider

  There were numerous free providers a short time ago. You will need a service provider to connect to the internet. For those online thhrough a public computer, you will only need to find a site which is willing to host your site. There are still many doing this for free, try Hypermart or Netfirms by clicking on their banners further down on this page.

• File Transfer Protocal

  While not always required, it is highly recomended that you use a program to upload your files with. Many site providers will have a page from which you can move your files to their computer.

• User Agents

  Yes, Windows users, may find the program Internet Explorer able to view your web pages, but it is recomended that pages be viewable with other agents. We recomend using more than one, but definitly including Netscape.

Much of this software may be found at The Software and Downloads Archive of Trillium University at: ware.netfirms.com

In addition, you may also wish to use several more programs for more advanced design concepts, such as a client side image mapper, a MIDI writer, or an HTML page editor.

HTML specifications.

I highly recommend that you obtain a copy of the specifications for the languages you will be using. While these documents may seem a bit intimidating to the novice, and they are not written in a tutorial manner, they will empower you as a coder. They are well organized, well written, and kept current. Visit the home page of the W3C and have a look at the documentation available for a a variety of web related topics and languages.

As we are first concerned with HTML (HyperText Markup Language), we include the links (below) to the documents you may be interested in. The current version of HTML is HTML version 4.01, and I suggest that you put a copy on your harddrive for quick reference.

• Version used in creating this tutorial.
  http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224
  Downloads. (All have the same content.)
  plain text [794Kb]
  gzip'ed tar archive of HTML files [371Kb]
  a .zip archive of HTML files [405Kb]
  gzip'ed Postscript file [746Kb, 389 pages]
  gzip'ed PDF file [963Kb]
  

• The most current version.
  http://www.w3.org/TR/html401

1. Preliminary
2. Design your site
3. Uploading files.
4. Testing your site.
5. More...

Click here for Neoworx products include route tracing (to see the internet route used to another online computer.)