So far, you've created files on your own PC and viewed them yourself with Netscape. In order to make your documents available to the rest of the world (through the Internet), they need to be installed on a web server. A web server may be set up at your school or business, or it can be part of a service from your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

Specific procedures for installing files on a web server vary depending on the type of system and how it is configured. You will need to get instructions from your system administrator. On Unix computer systems, you will generally have an account which provides a directory when you log in. In order to establish a home page, you need to create the subdirectory public_html and place a file called index.html in that directory. The Unix command to create the directory and make it available for viewing is:

     mkdir -m 705 public_html

Your WWW address for personal pages is based on your account ID, which is usually the same as your email address. For example, if your account at bsimple.org is pfd your WWW address would be www.bsimple.org/~pfd. Most systems use the tilde (that squiggly character) for user pages.

If you have created your HTML documents on your PC, you will need to transfer them to the web server in order to use them. The process to do this is called FTP (for File Transfer Protocol). Windows 95/98 systems come with the program ftp.exe, which is a command line program that allows you to connect with remote systems and transfer files. There are also Windows FTP programs, such as WS-FTP, which are much easier to use. You will need your account and password in order to log in.

Let's say you want to transfer the file first.htm wwhich you created for this exercise and make it your home page. The commands using ftp.exe are:

     type a
     cd public_html
     put c:\windows\first.html index.html

The first line tells FTP that you are transferring an ASCII file. The second line changes to the correct directory on your account. The third line transfers the file from your PC to the server and gives it the name index.html . At this point you could transfer more files with additional put commands. When you are done, give the command bye .

Keep in mind that Unix is case sensitive. Most people use lower case file names to avoid any confusion. You should also note that HTML documents on the Web server use the extension .html (if you are using Windows 3, your files would be .htm on your computer). After you set up your home page (index.html) you can copy additional HTML files into the directory.

If you are transferring graphics files (with a .gif or .jpg extension) you would replace the type a command with type b (for binary).

If you have any problems with your web server or FTP, please contact your computer support people.