Publishing Files on the World Wide Web

To publish a file on the World Wide Web means to transfer the file into a folder on a Web server so that other people around the world can access the file with a Web browser. Unless your computer happens to be a Web server, you need a way to transfer your files to the Web. This module provides you with the knowledge and the tools needed to transfer files from your computer to a World Wide Web file server. As you work through this module, you will publish your home page and your résumé on the Web.

After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Define what it means to publish a file on the World Wide Web.
• Know where to get free Web space for publishing your files.
• Transfer files to your World Wide Web site.
• Inspect the folder of files at your Web site.
• Create folders and maintain a good directory structure at your Web site.
• Rename or delete files at your Web site.
• Edit pages at your Web site.
• Cope with case-sensitive file servers.
• Set the file permission attributes at your Web site.
• Advertise the existence of your Web site.
• Publish a term paper to your Web site.
• Understand what it means to be a WebMaster.

Reading

Read Chapter 22 of the Internet Literacy textbook to study the concepts covered by this module.

Online Activities

The following online activities are designed to help you succeed in publishing your pages to the Web:

• In this course, you can publish your Web pages into any public Web space. If you do not have any public Web space, we recommend that you go to Yahoo! GeoCities and get some free Web space there. After you register for the space, make sure you remember your Yahoo! GeoCities account name and password.
• To publish into your GeoCities Web space, you will need to enter this information when you click the Publish button:
  • FTP Location: ftp://ftp.geocities.com/your_yahoo_id
  • User name: your_yahoo_id
  • Password: your_yahoo_password
  • Please note that all the characters should be in lowercase, unless your password contains uppercase characters. After you publish your Web page, its http address will be http://www.geocities.com/your_yahoo_id/your_page's_filename.
• If you are using FrontPage, you can publish your site by following the steps in Table 22-1.
• If you have Windows, you can also publish files with the Windows Explorer, as illustrated in Tables 22-2 and 22-3.
• Another way to transfer files to a Web site is to use an FTP program such as WS_FTP for Windows, or Fetch for the Macintosh. These programs have a graphical user interface that makes it easy to upload and download files, inspect the contents of the folders at your Web site, delete and rename files, and create new folders. To learn how to download and install the FTP software appropriate for your brand of computer and browser, follow the steps in Table 22-4.
• The first time you use your FTP software, you will need to configure a new connection for your Web site. The new connection configuration identifies the domain name of your Web server and your user ID on that server. To learn how to configure a new connection, follow the steps in Table 22-5.
• To learn how to FTP files to the Web, follow the steps in Table 22-6.
• Your FTP software provides a way to delete files you no longer want on the Web. It also lets you rename files. To learn how to delete and rename files at a Web site, follow the steps in Table 22-7.
• As the number of files at your Web site increases, you may choose to create folders to help keep your site organized. To learn how to create a folder at your Web site, follow the steps in Table 22-8. Remember that in order for the links in your files to work properly, the directory structure at your Web site must mirror that of the website directory on your computer.
• After you FTP your files to the Web, you will probably want to set the file permission attributes to let anyone in the world read your files, but allow only you to modify or delete them. To set the file permission attributes with WS_FTP, follow the steps in Table 22-9. If you are using Fetch, follow the steps in Table 22-10.
• After you publish your Web site, you will want to let other people know about it. Follow the steps suggested at the end of chapter 22 to make sure the Internet search engines know about your Web site. In particular, follow the steps in Table 22-11 to set the keyword metatags in your Web page.

Assignment

After you complete this module, you will be prepared to submit your answer to the following assignment, which is one of the most weighty assignments in this course:

• Chapters 18 through 21 step you through the process of creating a Web page résumé and a home page, and Chapter 22 shows you how to publish them to the Web. After you work through these chapters and publish your pages to the Web, browse to your home page to make sure that it looks good onscreen, contains no spelling mistakes, and links properly to your résumé. Remember that your résumé should contain a table of contents with links to named anchor bookmarks that make it easy for the user to find the different sections of your résumé and return to the contents, as described in Chapter 18. After you have your home page and your résumé working this way on the Web, you should submit them for a grade by submitting to your course instructor the Web address of your home page.