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What is HTML?
In technical terms it means hypertext markup language. In practical terms, it is the language of computers. We use HTML to tell computers how a webpage is supposed to be displayed. If you will look down at the bottom of your keyboard on the right you will see two little brackets in the upper case: "<" and ">." These two little backets are the most important and frequently used symbols in HTML language. Why? Because, although nothing that you type in between those symbols will show up on your webpage, what does go in there will tell computers how the page is supposed to be displayed. Text that is placed outside these brackets, i.e. <b>text</b> will show up on the webpage. The text that is INSIDE the brackets tells the computer how the text OUTSIDE is supposed to look. In the above example, the word "text" would show up as bold text. See there! You're only on the first page of this tutorial and already you've learned something about HTML.
OK. With that little introduction out of the way, let's get on with the business of building a webpage. It's really easier than you think. All you have to do is learn to talk the language of computers. Now, let's go to the next step.
Finding A Home For Your Webpage
In order to build a webpage or site of any kind, it is first necessary to have access to a server to put it on. A server, or host as it is sometimes called, is a computer or, more frequently, a battery of computers which is linked through the internet to a multitude of other computers. These other computers use the facilities of the servers to build websites on. A lot of these websites are commercial and so their owners pay the businesses who run the servers lots of money to use the server companies' computers to build their sites on.
But we only want to build a simple and personal homepage here, or maybe site, and really have no desire to pay the big bucks that space for a commercial website would cost. What do we do?
Fortunately, there are plenty of web companies out in cyberspace who will give you free webspace in exchange for the opportunity to run their advertising banners on your pages. Every time you build a new page, the host server imbeds their advertsing banner in it. This may be displayed as a small popup page in front of yours or it may be displayed as a banner at the top of your page. With this arrangement, it's easy to see why these companies are willing to offer freebie website space: the more people they have building pages and promoting them on their servers, the more effective their advertising is. The amount of space that some of these companies can offer for free is sometimes quite amazing. I have seen up to 100 megabytes of free webspace being offered to users of their servers.
Below is a list of links that will take you to sites that offer free webspace. I have personally gleaned these links from the net. Find one that you like, sign up and return here to start building your website using HTML.
Free Web Space Providers
Internet Trash
Unlike many free Web host providers, which place restrictions on content, these guys say they welcome "offensive, tasteless, useless, trashy, crude, rude, lewd, etc." content. (However, no adult content is allowed). What's more, they don't clutter your site with banner ads or pop-up ads. Definitely a nice change of pace. Here, you get 20 megabytes of space and FTP access. Other free features here include message boards, chat rooms, voting booths and more.
BigSiteCity.com
An excellent new free Web hoster offers you 100 megs of space. They offer a number of nifty free enchancements for your site: a counter, guest book, personalized domain name, site stats, tutorials and more.
eSmartStart.com
A speedy, solid free hosting service which offers 100 megabytes of Web space for your personal or commercial Web site. Esmartstart.com lets you use your own domain name or you may choose from among 12 virtual domains. Here, you get full FTP access, as well as an easy-to-use Web-based file manager. Other features include unlimited E-mail addresses, a guestbook, counter, templates and more. Excellent tech support is provided via E-mail.
50megs.com
A solid, reliable free Web hoster that offers you a generous 50 megabytes of space, in exchange for displaying their 468-by-60 pixel banner, (which you may display either inline or as a pop-up). Your URL here will be http://www.50megs.com/YourSite. They also offer an easy-to-use online "EZ Web Builder" that allows you to create Web pages, even if you have no knowledge of HTML. Note: no adult or warez sites allowed. (50megs.com now offers FTP access).
TopCities.com
A promising new free Web space provider, TopCities.com offers you 150 megabytes of space, unlimited bandwidth and free subdomains. Here, you upload your files using their online "EasyUpload" utility. TopCities.com also offers a number of free enhancements for your site, such as a guestbook and a message board. They also feature a free submission utility to help you get listed in the Web's major search engines.
Dencity.com
A new hoster, Dencity.com offers 25 megabytes of free Web space for your commercial or personal site. Here, you get a message board, daily stats, CGI scripts, FTP access and a Web file manager. Rather than burdening members' pages with large banners, all they require is that you display a small button at the bottom of your page.
NetManor.com
A reliable free Web hoster that offers you 15 megs of space, as well as a free E-mail account. There are lots of helpful Webmaster resources here to help you get started.
NetColony.com
A fast-growing free Web page provider that offers a generous 100 megabytes of space. One big plus here is that they don't burden your site with annoying pop-up windows (although they do require you to display a banner). There are helpful tutorials here on HTML and site design, as well as information on graphics, site promotion, Java and more.
HttpCity.com
A solid free Web hoster, HttpCity.com offers you 35 megabytes of space and a short URL (you@httpcity.com). Members here get access to various helpful Webmaster tool suites and both basic and advanced editors are available.
WebProvider.com
We've had a number of requests lately for a free Web hosting service that offers full CGI access and FrontPage extensions. This ace free hoster offers these services and a lot more. WebProvider.com gives you 10 megs of space, free hosting of virtual and non-virtual domains and telnet/FTP access. They also offer page building via the innovative, easy-to-use Trellix Web-building tool. Tech support here is solid. Members are required to display either pop-up ads or banner ads on their pages.
Myqth.com
Here's a free Web hosting service that offers "unlimited" Web space for your personal or business site. Their features include free subdomains, E-mail, FTP access, an easy-to-use control panel and free Web building tools.
Xoasis.com
A promising Web hoster that allows you full CGI and PHP capability. Here, you get 10 megs of space and FTP file management. There are lots of free services here to spice up your site, too.
No-Frills.net
A fine new free Web hoster that offers "unlimited" storage space for your site. They offer an online site builder, as well as FTP access. There's a number of other helpful features, too, such as a banner exchange, free graphics, a Meta tag generator, site tracking and more.
100 Megs Free
A new fully featured free Web hoster that offers a generous 100 megabytes of space. You can either upload your existing site to this service or create a new site with their online templates. They also offer nifty features like form mail, a forum, guestbook, etc.
Qwik Pages
This new service lives up to its name. Just fill out a short form and you'll get your own free 100 megabyte Web site, along with your own free E-mail address. You edit and upload pages here through their online "Qwik Builder" utility, which is easy to use. No adult sites permitted. Qwik Pages now offers FTP uploading, free stats and other handy new features.
Escalix Free Web Space
This free Web page provider offers you six megs of space. Here, you upload and edit your Web page with their easy-to-use "Homepage Manager." Access is quick, thanks to their OC-3 (155 mbps) connection. Members are required to display two 468-by-60 pixel banners on their pages. No porn sites allowed. Escalix recently upgraded their servers and service has greatly improved.
20m.com
At this free Web hosting service, you get 20 megs of space, along with a third-level domain. Your URL here will be YourName@20m.com. 20m.com also offers free E-mail accounts, instant messaging, FTP access and site promotional tools.
FreeServers.com
Here's an excellent free ad-supported Web hosting service that offers you a choice of six subdomains and "unlimited" E-mail addresses. Your site address here will be (for example) http://YourSiteName.freeservers.com. FreeServers.com gives you 20 megabytes of space. You also get a free counter, a free guestbook, instant messaging, and direct FTP access.
Starting Your Page
<html>
This is the very first thing that should appear at the top of your page. It tells your computer, "Hey pal! Wake up! There's some HTML language on the way. Standby and take notes." At the very bottom of your page, after you had put all into it that you wanted to put, you would tell your computer to go back to sleep, the HTML notetaking session is over with: </html>. The slash right mark means to close the HTML command.
All right... so far, so good. Now let's go on to the next part of building your webpage. You still with me?
<head>
This is the heading. Into it we're going to put the pages's title and META tags--the things that search engines use to find and list your page on the web with. But more on that later. Right now lets's talk about the title for your page. The HTML for puttng a title on your page is written like this:
<title>SOUTHERN LATITUDES: The Homepages of K. Steven Monk</title>
There... I've just written the title of my homepage in HTML. It will appear in the little blue bar at the top of my page on the web. Simple, huh?
<body>
Let's talk here about that all important part of your webpage--body. What you put here determines how a lot of basic things on your page are going to look: things like background color, or background image, the color of your links, margins, etc. Here's how an example for body HTML code might look:
<body> background="filename.jpg" link="0000FF vlink="006600" alink="FF3300">
In the above example we are using an image for the background. If we had wanted to use a color for the background, we would have written the code for it as: bgcolor="0000FF". The number value that has been placed here is the HTML code for the color blue. To select a different color for your background, or text as we shall see, use the convenient color chart below. Just copy and paste the desired number to the place where you want to put it in the code for your page.
HTML Color Codes:
Copy and paste the number of the desired color to where you want it in your HTML script.
000000
999999
F02230
FF3300
FF0000
FF0099
FF00CC
FF00FF
FF77CR
CC77CR
CC00CR
FF6600
FF7800
FF9000
CC7700
990000
800000
0000CC
0000FF
0077CC
006600
007700
FFFF00
FFFF33
FFFF99
FFFFCC
FFFFFF
The above colors should provide you with a good basic color scheme for your web page. If you desire a still greater variety of colors in your layout, then there's a handy little page on the web that you can use that will provide you with an extensive color chart. When you click on any of the colors on this chart, then the hexidecimal code number for that color appears in a little box at the bottom of the page. You can then copy and paste this number into the place on your web page HTML that you want it to go. To go to this wonderful little tool then just click here.
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