Uploading Files
All you need now is server space for your homepage. Since most of us don't have a 24 hour connection to the internet, you would look for someone who does. Your service provider usually would have some space available for you, but the problem with that is that when you change from one ISP (Internet Service Provider) to the next, you have to move all your files. Another option would be to host your web page on someone else's server, but that could be rather costly sometimes, which brings me to your final option, free hosting on the internet. But how, you might ask? Well, there are many places on the internet where you can register yourself and get anything from 5 to unlimited megabytes of space, and all of this for free. However there is a couple of disadvantages. Firstly advert banners will be displayed on your web page in most cases, but it's not really a problem, since it will normally be very small and in some cases you can move it anywhere on your page as long as it's displayed, a small price to pay for free web hosting. Another drawback is that most free hosting services don't allow the execution of CGI scripts, database access or even Java applets, so you are pretty much limited to a more static page. So how do you do a guestbook or page counter, well luckily almost all the free web hosting services have those features setup already for you, all you have to do is initialize it and bob's your uncle. But overall you can have a fantastic web page with loads of cool features hosted on the web, and best of all it is for free. Check out my links page for a listing of web hosting services.
But how do you get your files from your computer onto the web hosting server? Well once again you have a couple of options. In most cases the web hosting services has a facility that allows you to browse your computer for the files and then upload it to their server, as well as a file manager which allows you to delete, change and add files. This would be the easiest method to upload your files, but in some cases there is no such facility available and then you have to use your own FTP upload application. FTP or File Transfer Protocol, is a method of Internet file transfer, it allows you to move files to and from servers or computers on the Internet. Millions of people use FTP daily to upload Web pages and download software.
One such application is
CuteFTP and you can download it here.
CuteFTP is the easiest way to transfer files across the Internet. All
you have to do is download and install the application, then run it and log on to the web
server you want to upload your files to. To logon with FTP, you must have two things, a
host FTP server and a username and password. Let's use the free hosting service Geocities
as an example. Your host will have information on which FTP server you should use. The FTP
server for Geocities is ftp:geocities.com. When you register at
all the free host services you get a username and password, and you have to use that
username and password to gain access. Once connected, your FTP program will probably have
two windows, one that shows the local files (your hard drive) and one that shows host
files (on your host's server). Then you can click on the files you wish to send and then
upload them. Once uploaded they can be accessed by anyone on the world wide web. If you
see an option in your
FTP program for a file type of either ASCII or binary, use ASCII when transferring HTML
files, and binary when transferring graphics files.
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