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WURD Web Designer's Handbook

Everyone is creating Web pages these days. It seems as though you just aren't with it unless you have your own page on the Web. Even AT&T Worldnet Service is offering members Web page space. This document will give you some things to study, some food for thought and some tools to help you get started. Note: Access to the AT&T Worldnet PWP servers and publishing area from another ISP is now available. Read the information in our PWP FAQ for additional information.

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Getting Started

Where do I start?

The first thing you should do is take the Personal Web Pages Tour. Read everything you can get your hands (or mouse) on.

Before you can do anything you will need to register with AT&T to use your free Web space. We've provided a tutorial to help you through the process.

What do I do now?

This is the hard part... you can either use the publishing tools offered by AT&T Worldnet Service, or, you can learn how to do it yourself.

If you feel like you're not ready to do it yourself, choose one of the Publishing Templates to put a page up fast. Several templates are offered, but we recommend using one of the templates shown below. Be sure to view the tutorials before you start.

Whichever template you use, we recommend that you name your file index.htm or index.html so you won't get the dreaded This User Hasn't Moved in Yet message when someone tries to access your page. Remember, case counts. A file name of Index.htm is not the same as index.htm.

If you feel confident doing it on your own, and, if you know HTML, you can use the HTML Editor. You can also use one of the Web editors shown in the next section of the handbook.

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Creating and Editing

What can I use to create my Web page?

In addition to the publishing tools provided by AT&T Worldnet Service, there are literally hundreds of Web editors out there and some of the free Web space sites mentioned below also offer built-in tools to use. We've listed quite a few of them below.

What do I need to know?

Web pages are created in what is called HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). If you are new to creating Web pages you might have a lot of questions, don't worry. First, check out WURD Personal Web Page FAQ. Some other good sources to help you learn everything you need to know about designing and building your site are listed below.

Color

Did you ever wonder how color works with HTML? Have you ever asked yourself "What is RGB?" The links below will help you understand how color works.

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Advanced HTML

Once you understand the basics of HTML you might want to try some more advanced techniques to jazz up your pages. Below are some useful links to more advanced HTML methods.

Mail to Forms

A mailto form can be used when CGI Script is not available to you. Your visitor will fill out your form which will be mailed to your e-mail address. These tutorials will help you understand how to create a Mailto Form to put on your Web page.

Java & JavaScript

Java seems to be the in thing. Everyone wants to know how to use Java and it's not as hard as you might think. If you'd like to use Java on your Web site or are just curious to know what all the talk is about visit these tutorials below.

Scanning Images

Do you have a photo that you would like put on your Web page? Have you ever wondered if you should save your image as a JPG or a GIF? The link below will help you to better understand about scanning images.

Sound

Would you like to put sound on your page? You want your page to rock? Check out the site below, and you'll be rocking in no time.

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Publishing your Web Pages

What do I use to Publish my pages?

The worst is over, your page is now complete and you're ready to publish it. Now might be a good time to review the WURD Personal Web Page FAQ. Make sure that all of the naming conventions are met, etc.

Once you have that done, it's time to think about transferring your files from your hard drive to the AT&T Worldnet personal Web page server. To do this, you will use a procedure referred to as FTP (File Transfer Protocol). If you feel you need a basic tutorial on FTP, read our FTP Tutorial.

To get your pages on the AT&T Worldnet personal Web page server, you can use the tools provided by AT&T Worldnet Service, or, you can use another application to do this. Check out the WURD on Uploading if you want to use the site tools, or, the WURD on FTP for a list of popular FTP applications. Some of the editors provide a way to do this within them, but we recommend using one of the profiled FTP applications. We've provided detailed instructions for the most popular ones.

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Promoting Your Site

So you created an awesome Web site... who's going to see it? You need to get your URL circulated. There are a few ways this can be done: through newsgroups, search engines, banner ads, links from other sites and Web rings. Personal Web Pages @att.net offers the following page on promoting your site:

AT&T Worldnet Community Port

You can add your page to Community Port in one of many categories. Just pick the one that your page fits the best. They ask that you not post your page in more than one category.

Web rings

There are Web rings for almost every subject. If there isn't one for your topic, start one. AT&T Worldnet Service has provided a Web ring for your use.

If that one isn't exactly what you were looking for, here is a free Web ring service:

Banner Ads

You can create a banner ad for your site and join a link exchange. The link exchange will place your ad on other sites with the same subject matter as yours. Here are some; there are more if you look for them:

You will still need a banner for your page. If you can't create your own, there are places that will do it for free:

Links To/From Other Sites

Find sites similar to yours and contact the Webmaster of that page. Offer to create a link to their page if they will do the same in return.

Newsgroups

If there are newsgroups that cover the subject of your Web site announce your site in that group... ONLY ONCE. Don't spam a newsgroup with hopes of making friends and getting hits on your site. Add the name of your site and URL to your signature and be helpful and participate in that newsgroup. If you show you know what you are talking about people will flood to your site.

Search Engines

You must register to get found by a search engine. After you register all kinds of creepy crawly things like WebBots and Spiders will visit your site. They will read your page so they will know how and where to index it. Some will read the text of the page, some will read the <H1> and <H2> tags and some will read META tags. Do not try and spam the WebBots and spiders by adding the same words over and over again. They will only ignore the redundancies. Here is a great site about search engines:

Before you register you will need to build META tags. META tags are placed inside the HEAD tags and can include many things, some of which are:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>your pages title</TITLE>
<META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="your name">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="a short description of your site">
<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="keywords that search engines can use as an index such as... collectibles, coins, stamps>
</HEAD>

Here are two META tag builders:

For more information about registering with search engines go to these sites:

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Need More Space?

So 25MB of Web space isn't enough for you, huh? How does 150MB sound? If you sign up for an additional 5 e-mail addresses, you'll have a total of 150MB available to you, 25MB for each e-mail address... FREE! You can't assign all 150MB to one e-mail ID, but you can link the sites together just like you would link to any other page. For some tips on managing your Web sites, see the following page:

If 150MB isn't enough, there are numerous other places on the net where you can get free Web space. Following are some known sites that offer free Web space that a number of AT&T Worldnet Service members use. We aren't recommending any of them. We just wanted to let you know that they're there. If these aren't what you were looking for, try using one of the many available search engines to locate others. If you need help searching, check out our Search Tutorial.

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Need Additional Help?

If you can't find the answers you need, please try:

  1. The help file for the application you are using.
  2. Our FAQs.
  3. The AT&T Worldnet Help Newsgroups.
Note: AT&T DSL Service support is available at http://dslhelp.att.net

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