Quick Steps Overview:

• Whatever system you use as your web server will have policies on do's and don'ts. Check with your system administrator for your web server as to the latest policies.
• Also ask your system administrator for your web site to issue you a web account with a host address, a username and password. The administrator will provide you with a specific labeled area on the web server's hard drive that only someone with your account data will be able to enter. Unless you give this information to someone else, only you and the administrator will be able to access it. The administrator will only be in your file area if there our problems with your account.
• Place your files in your account area on the hard drive of a remote computer that is running web server software. This is also referred to as publishing your web pages.

Move files into your account area

You need to place all of your web page files into the folder (directory) created by your system administrator for your account. You can also put folders within your your account folder. Netscape has a simplified FTP procedure built in to Netscape Composer on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms.

From either the Windows or Mac platform you can use the same procedure.

Make sure you are in Composer and that the web page you wish to transfer to your web publisher is the active window. Make sure that you have saved your latest changes to the file. Click File in the Menu Bar and select the Publish command.

Careful here! Follow these directions carefully. There are three fields of data to enter. In the Publish field [Publish File (Mac); or location to publish to (WIN)], enter the web address of the place you wish to publish (domain name), then your username preceeded by a tilde (~) symbol followed by the name of the file that will be used for this data at your web publisher. For example, it might be:

http://www3.wcu.edu/~AZ18724/index.html

Then enter your username and password required for your access to the Vax computer. Click the publish button which should respond with a the name of the file being transferred. There is no message indicating that the file successfully was transferred. However, if there were problems you would have received some error messages. No news is good news. Test your newly uploaded web pages that were just placed on the Vax.



Use A Browser (e.g., Netscape) to Test Your Account's Web Pages

1. To test the success of your uploading, use a web browser such as the Netscape program. In the location window at the top of the screen, you may need to enter the address to the web file that you just placed in your account area and tap the return key. The format is: domain name, account name and file name separated by slashes.
2. For the address of your web files, you will need to add your own username, but the address might look something like one of these:

   http://www3.wcu.edu/~Houghton/index.html

   http://152.30.16.200/QT17943/home.html

   http://www.somewhere.com/Smith/assignments.html

   Your web page with its latest changes should appear. If it does not, then you will need to return to the steps above and determine which one must be properly completed.

   You may also find the the URL or address of your web page is already entered because you were just looking at it. To force the latest changes to appear on this web page, click the reload button.

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Plan Ahead

One advantage of this form of publishing, web publishing, is the quickness with which it becomes available to anyone on the planet. This assumes of course that others have been told what these web pages contain and how they can reach them. Carefully edit. Not only can you display your latest great ideas and information , but you can now display your own mis-spellings and incorrectly informed ideas with the same speed. Use your new skills to share your creative works, interests and activities. For example, you might want to publish a calendar of events, newsletters, personal pages, and any information normally published on paper.

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Web Author: Houghton

This page last updated on January 28 1999

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