How to publish your writing on the web

This tutorial is designed to teach you how to set up your own free website and publish your writings on the web. The first thing you need to do is to obtain some webspace on a free webserver that people can go to in order to read your writing. Probably the earliest and largest webserver to do this for the general public is at

http://www.oocities.org

There are many other free webservers that do this also, such as tripod.com, angelfire.com, fortunecity.com, and so forth. Geocities was bought out by Yahoo a while back so you will see Yahoo’s name associated with Geocities. The reason that they are willing to provide the free webspace is so that they can put an ad on your page. That is the tradeoff i.e., free webspace for an ad. There are some tricks to disable the popup ad but we will leave that for another time. On rare occasions Geocities has been known to become overloaded by its users or to go offline to fix something for short periods. The highest use time for their server is at noon, 5 pm, and 10 pm when people like to surf the web and make changes to their personal home pages.

In this tutorial then you will obtain some webspace, set up your own webpage, and learn how to create links to webpages with your writing on it. Raise your hand if you are having any problems. Since even elementary school students are now creating websites, this is not a particularly difficult thing to learn. If a fourth grader can learn how to do this you should not have any problem with learning this.

  1. Turn on your computer (if it is not already on) and double click on the Netscape icon on your desktop to open your Netscape browser.
  2. In the location or netsite white box at the top of the browser window type in http://www.oocities.org and hit enter. This should bring you to geocities main page or "splash" page. You will automatically be transferred to a webpage with the address http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/
  3. This main page should have the Yahoo! Geocities logo in the upper left hand corner and in a small yellow box in the center of the page it says Build Your Website! Click on that.
  4. On the next page find the link that says: "I’m a New User, Sign Me Up!" and click on it.
  5. You will be at a webpage that starts out "Get a Yahoo! ID and password for free access to Yahoo! GeoCities." Fill out the form, and write down on a separate piece of paper somewhere (where you won’t lose it) your Yahoo ID name and the Password you select, and then hit "Submit this Form" at the bottom of the page.
  6. If all of the parts of the form are ok you will end up at a webpage that asks you to "Choose a topic that best describes your page." Pick one and hit the "Submit" button.
  7. You will then be at a webpage that says: "Welcome to Yahoo! GeoCities. We just sent you a confirmation email explaining everything you need to know to build your very own home page. Be sure to write down your Yahoo! ID and password for future reference. Make sure to write everything down on a piece of paper that you can locate in the future and then hit "Build your page now!"
  8. You should now be at a webpage that says "Build webpages." Click on the link that says: "Yahoo! PageWizards EASY! Just answer a few questions and we will create a great-looking page for you."
  9. Pick one of the eight template designs and click on the example.
  10. Follow the 4 steps of directions which starts by pressing the "Begin" button.
  11. Read the choices and click your choice and then hit "Next" button working your way through the web page wizard.
  12. You should reach a webpage that begins "Enter your page title and text." Type in a description of yourself that is at least three paragraphs (9 sentences) long. This is your writing assignment part of the tutorial for this class. Correct all mechanical errors so the world thinks you can write well. You might want to mention your interests and hobbies, where you go to school and so forth. Have the person sitting next to you proofread it for you.
  13. Click the "next" button and you should be at the "Pick your picture" page. Click the "Next" button.
  14. You should now be at the "Enter your favorite links" page. Under "Link Name 1" type in "EngC 1011 section 15 website" and in the web address window type in www.oocities.org/kevinlcallahan/composition.html which will give you a link back to the class website. Under "Link Name 2" type in "University of Minnesota" and in the web address window type in "onestop.umn.edu" which will give you a link to the U of M’s website. Under "Link Name 3" type in "University Libraries" andin the web address window type in www.lib.umn.edu which will give you a link to the main library webpage. Under "Link Name 4" type in "Google Search Engine" and in the web address window type in www.google.com which will get you to a good search engine for internet research. You can change these or add to these later with your favorite websites, but these can get you started. Then hit the "Next" button.
  15. At the "enter your information" page fill in your name and email address and hit "next."
  16. On the "Make this your webpage" page indicate "yes" and click "Next."
  17. On the "Congratulations" page write down the web address of your new webpage and click "done."
  18. On the webpage that says "Spread the word" click on the link to your new webpage and look at it.
  19. You have a webpage.
  20. To modify it click your "Back" button.
  21. Click on the link called "Customize with Page Builder." Click "OK" on the "New Features in This Version!" The page you are looking at allows you to change text or add and delete pictures.
  22. Put your cursor at the end of your text and add the words "Here are some of my prior writings." Highlight the phrase by running your cursor over the words you have just typed with your left mouse button held down. Then click the link button at the upper right corner of the screen and type in http://members2.boardhost.com/engc/ which is the web address for the class Bulletin Board.
  23. When you are done click the "Add Ons" button and look at the various things that you can add to your page then close the Yahoo Pagebuilder by pressing the x in the far upper right corner of the screen. Indicate that you wanrt to change the changes to your screen. This may take awhile depending on the amount of web traffic. Close the small Page Builder window as well.
  24. If you want to change your page now or at a later time go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/home/ and click "File Manager" under "Advanced Tools."
  25. Click "Open File Manager."
  26. You can upload webpage files (that you create with a word processor from your computer) at the bottom of the page and then create a link to it on your home page or you can create new webpages by simply hitting the "New" button and typing or cutting and pasting text into it.
  27. To create a new webpage click the "New button" and type in "pagetwo.html" under filename and type in some text just before the </body>.
  28. Now click the "Preview" button and your webpage will be shown at the top of the page followed by the Advanced HTML Editor.
  29. Type "pagetwo.html" into the file name white box and Click "Save." You will be returned to the File Manager.
  30. Check the box next to index.html and click "Edit."
  31. Scroll down until you find "Here are some of my prior writings." and immediately after the period type

    32. <a href="pagetwo.html">This is another example</a>

    What this is is the command to create an active link to pagetwo.html of your website. Make sure to type it exactly.

  32. Click the "Preview" button and scroll down and hit the link "This is another example." If your link works you will go to page two. Then hit your back button.
  33. Click the "Save" button. This will return you to the File manager. You are finished.
  34. For Your Information: If you want to add your own pictures to your website you can scan and upload photos with a .jpg or .gif file extension on the file name to the file manager and then put the following command in the Advanced File Manager window for your webpage:

<img src="FILENAME.jpg">

This will load the image into your personal webpage. You can save any photo on the web into your computer by right clicking on the photo with your mouse (with a PC) or holding down on the photo with your cursor on a Mac for 2 seconds and saving the photo into your computer. You will have to remember where in your computer you put it so you can upload it from that location with the Geocities File Manager into your files and then create a link to it.