Jennifer's How To Page

Hi Welcome to my "how to" page. Here I will tell you how I put together my pages, what software I use, and some links I use for information. Hope it helps you out. This page is not meant to give you detailed information on how to create your page, it is meant to direct you to other pages and software that will help you out. I have just added some GeoCities information for new homesteaders!!

Geocities stuff

Moving In
Geo Guestbook
FTP Geo
Geo Counter
Using EZ Upload

HTML
Transparent GIFs and Pics
Animated GIFs
Image Maps
Real Audio

GeoCities Stuff for new Homesteaders

Getting moved in Geocities gives you two weeks after you sign up to "get moved in" one of my most frequently asked questions is how you can do this. Basically you need to either upload a new index.html or create one...here is how to create one at Geo:
Go to the File Manager:
http://www.oocities.org/members/tools/file_manager.html
And log in...
Now check next to the file called index.html and then Delete it!!
Now in the Choose Your Editor: box chose either the Basic HTML Editor, the Intel Editor or the EZ-Editor.

Here is the Deal with the different editors. The Basic Editor will work for anyone an creates a very basic first page. The EZ-Editor is a bit more advanced and requires that you have a JAVA capable browser. The Intel Editor will create the most advanced page yet with 3D and streaming video. All are fairly easy to use it is just up to you.

Then click on the button a bit above that says Create New HTML File Call your file index.html Make sure you call it this exactly...now just answer all the questions and your first page will be created!!

Creating a Geo Guestbook Geocities offers you an easy to use guestbook here are the steps to getting yours started:

You can intialize your geocities guestbook from here
http://www.oocities.org/members/tools/guestbook.html

Then you can add the following code to make links to the add and view portions of your guestbook:

Setting up FTP for Geo Here are the settings for FTP
Profile Name: Geocities
Host Name/Address: ftp.geocities.com
Host Type: Automatic Detect
User ID: Your geocities member name
Password: Your geocities account password
Make sure that the Annonymous box is NOT checked
You can check the Save Password box if you want....

This should set you up and take you directly to your account

Using GeoCities Counter Geo has its own counter. You can enable it by adding the following code:

This will put a counter on your page..you can set the counter to whatever number you want from the counter manager which can be accessed from the File Manager
http://www.oocities.org/members/tools/file_manager.html

Using GeoCities EZ Upload

1)Go to the Geocities File Manager: http://www.oocities.org/members/tools/file_manager.html
2)Log In
3)Scroll down to the EZ-Upload section...OK if you don't see buttons that say Browse you either are using AOL or you don't have a 4+ browser. You will have to use FTP
4)The Browse buttons let you look at your computer hard drive...you can use this to find your pictures that you saved...you may need to click on the little arrow by the Files of Type box and choose All Files (*.*) to see your pictures. Click on the browse button and find the first picture you want to use on your page.
5)You can do this for up to 5 files at a time...then click on the Upload Files button.
6)Now wait a sec and it should tell you that they have been uploaded....

HTML If you don't know HTML coding I recommend using a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor. There are quite a few shareware ones out there. I use Netscape Composer. It has a nice interface that allows the insert of tables and Java Script straight from the editor. I have also heard some great things about Microsoft Front Page. There are a ton of pages specializing in HTML help. Here are the ones that helped me the most.

Bare Bones Guide to HTML
How do they do that with HTML

Transparent GIF and Pictures I use two graphics programs to make pictures, Paint Shop Pro and Microsoft Image Composer. Both allow you to make transparent GIFs as well. Image Composer is handy for its effects, has "sprite" movement, and is FREE but it doesn't replace Paint Shop by any means. Paint Shop Pro will probably do it for you if you just want basic pictures. Image Composer does come bundled with GIFAnimator though for animated GIFs witch is nice.

Animated GIFs Until recently I used GIF Construction Set to make my GIFs transparent and to Animate them. This shareware program is quite powerful and easy to use. Since I downloaded Image Composer, however, I have been using the GIFAnimator program that comes with it. It is not as feature rich as If Construction Set, but makes animated GIFs just as efficiently and easily and is FREE. If construction Set 32bit now has AVI converter capabilities and built in image editing.
Want to know how I made those Hannah Heads?
I took one of Hannah's pictures, cut out just her head using Paint Shop Pro. Saved it as is and then mirrored it (again using Paint Shop) and saved it again under a different name. Then it was just a matter of creating a two frame animated GIF in If Construction Set. GIFAnimator would do this just as easily. Wow - Dancing Hannah heads!

Image Maps Want Image Maps like the one at the top of this page? I did code them directly which really isn't that hard but requires some patience. Now, however, I use MapEdit!! which greatly simplifies image map making. If you want to code it yourself here are the bare bones for a Client Side Image Map:

This line tells it what image it should use, in this case hannahtitle.gif, and to make it a map with the USEMAP tag.
Here we name the map. The map name should match the name used in the USEMAP tag. The # sign before the name in the USEMAP tag is obligatory.
Here we give the areas for the map. I used rectangles (top left x, top left y, bottom right x, bottom right y) There are other shapes you can use (poly and circle). The HREF tag works normally just telling it where to go. The default shape gives it a place to go if someone miss clicks.

Give this a shot yourself or use an image mapper program, either way, image maps are cool.

Real Audio I have just started adding Real Audio to my site. This is a really neat way to spice up your site without taking up tons of storage space! Everything I know about Real Audio you can find at this site: Babylon 6: Beginners Guide To Real Audio.

I can't possibly hope to cover this subject a thoroughly as he does. What it comes down to is you need the RealEncoder the RealPlayer and a text file. What I did was encode the .WAV file with the RealEncoder which gives you a .RA file. I uploaded this to my server along with a text file saved with a .RAM extension that said the following:

pnm://www.myserver.com/myfile.ra

And WHOOPEE it worked. This is a really basic idea of what I did. Please check out site above, he takes you step by step through everything you need to know.

Kids

PostCards

Hannahs

Wiggly's

Pictures

Comments

Index

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