Computer
Info –
This Week’s Meeting
Happy Thanksgiving
to everyone. Larry Kebel will continue his discussion of writing web pages –
HTML – web page publishing and promoting, etc.
Wal-Mart – An Internet Provider
Wal-Mart ( http://www.walmart.com )
Wal-Mart
is in the internet provider business now.
You can pick up a CD at the Wal-Mart store – visit them online and order
the CD or download the software. It is
$9.94 a month for unlimited service and they do have two local phone numbers in
DeBary.
Cheap and Free Internet Providers
With
this website you can locate the cheap or free internet providers in your area.
Web Pages and Publishing
You
do need some basic computer skills/understanding to help you with your endeavor
of creating web pages and placing them on the internet. These skills are the same ones that help you
navigate through your own computer –
COPY (right-click on
a file and choose Copy – this makes a duplicate of the file that will wait in
the computer’s memory until you decide where it is to be copied to.)
CUT (right-click on a
file and choose Cut – this will remove it from where it is located – place a
copy of it in the computer’s memory until you decide where you want it to be
placed.)
PASTE (after you have
something in the computer’s memory – you can right-click on an empty area in a
folder and choose Paste. This will then
place the computer’s memory contents in this location.)
You
also need to know how to Create a New File – Rename a
File – Create Shortcuts.
And
then we get down to the most important one --- hard drive organization. This means creating folders with names that
mean something – placing the appropriate files in those folders – all for the
purpose of being able to FIND the information later.
What
is the purpose of having a web page – SHARING INFORMATION. We share the information whether we have a
small business, a family genealogy page or a book that we wrote and wish to
sell.
Want
to see the actual language that a web page is written in – right-click on a web
page and choose VIEW SOURCE. This will
open up Notepad or Wordpad and you will be able to
see the HTML commands that produce that web page. You can even save it from here and then use
portions of it to help you design a web page.
If you are viewing a web page and
you like the background that they are using, right-click on the page and choose
SAVE BACKGROUND AS. If you are thinking
about creating a web page, you might want to create a folder (maybe named
BACKGROUNDS) and save a few different backgrounds in it.
Larry found it frustrating trying to
decide what book he should buy to help him learn a language that is used to
create a web page. While standing at the
book store, he found books about PERL – XML – HTML – DHTML – CGI – JAVA – JAVA
SCRIPT – ACTIVEX – but which one should he get.
It looks like HTML would be the first one to learn if you wanted to
learn one of the languages.
Many of you are given a small amount
of web space by your internet provider.
This is where you can start experimenting with a web page. Another use for that web space that they
provide you – would be to use it for the purpose of backing up some of your
special pictures or documents. You might
now be backing them up to CD – but if that CD is stored in the same place that
your computer is; then some catastrophe would cause you to lose all of your
information. By placing it on the site
that your internet provider has given you – you would be able to retrieve it
again.
You could just create your own home
page for your browser – one that maybe would contains links to all of your
favorite websites. This web page (home
page) would reside on your computer.
Need more e-mail addresses. Try Mail.Com ( http://www.mail.com
). What is the purpose of this – as
Larry was showing us, you have a large variety of addresses that you might like
– it gives you one steady address to keep while you jump around from provider
to provider; therefore you don’t have to keep emailing your friends to let them
know what your new email address is.
Also try Address.Com ( http://www.address.com
).
Probably the first thing you need
when creating a web page is a web address or site name. There are many, many sites that you can visit
to determine if the web address that you would like has already been purchased
– but one good place to visit is
WhoIs http://www.whois-search.com
Here you
can search for a good web address and then purchase that web address if it is available. The cost is $8.65 a year. By purchasing this web address, you have leased
that address for a year. If you do not
pay the next year, it is available for someone else to use. Now this does not get you anything but a name
– web address. This does not mean that
you or anyone else can go to that web site – because you now need a web host
(someone who will have their computer connected to the internet 24 hours a day
and has the space on their computer for you).
One example of that would be 123CheapDomains ( http://www.123cheapdomains.com). At 123cheapdomains you can also find out
information about someone who owns any web address.
Recall An Email
Message
This sounded surprising to me – but
a friend called and said that his daughter had just recalled an email message.
It seems that if you are running
MS-Outlook (this is the version of Outlook that comes with Microsoft Office) –
you can recall a message that you have sent – if the person to whom it was sent
had not opened it yet.