SkyPoint
Communications is a full service Internet Service Provider.
Note: This page contains dated (old) material. Current server settings for updating personal web pages are:
Server: www.skypoint.com
Username: (use your full email address including the @skypoint.com)
Password: (use the password that was assigned for personal web updates. This may or may not be the same as your email password)
Working directory: /
Creating a Personal Web Page
on SkyPoint
The programming language
for the Web is hypertext manuscript language, or HTML. This is simply text
that has codes entered in to start and end styles and formats. It is not platform
specific, so a Web page written on a Macintosh or a Windows machine or a UNIX
machine will all run the same and can be hosted on any type of Web server.
There are many books on HTML programming, and a variety of things you can
do with it. Use the search capabilities on the WWW to get the latest on its
possibilities. An excellent source to learn HTML from is HTML: The Definitive
Guide, by Chuck Musciano and Bill Kennedy, published by O'Reilly and Associates.
This book is available at or can be ordered by most good bookstores.
Another way to familiarize
yourself with HTML is to use the "Source" choice inside your Web browser's
"View" command. This lets you see the language used in various Web pages you
might admire.
There is a wide assortment
of Web page creation software on the market. Much of the software can simply
be downloaded using FTP programs. Among other locations, Macintosh choices
can be found at http://www.jumbo.com
and at http://www.shareware.com,
while PC platforms are represented at http://CWS.wilmington.net.
Also, many word processors and desktop publishing systems have HTML document
translators. We strongly suggest, however, that you have a good familiarity
with HTML, even if you want to use authoring software to do the work for you.
No software is as good a coder as the human brain, and many packages add garbage
comments every time you edit a document. After a while, your site may become
slow and huge if you are not careful to optimize your code after using an
authoring application!
Remember, every Web page
must run somewhere on the spectrum between total entertainment and total education.
You must decide what "market" you want to reach. A successful Web site is
targeted, visually interesting, neat, easy to use, and informative.
NOTE: the first
page of your Web page MUST be saved under the name index.html or index.htm.
After you have written
your Web pages, you have to transfer your HTML files to the machine where
the WWW server is running. Use the FTP (file transfer) program of your choice,
e.g., Ws_ftp or Fetch, or the FTP functions on your Web browser or the "Save
To FTP" function on some Web authoring software. Do not login as anonymous
- use your real account login id, and your password.
If you are using an FTP
utility rather than your browser or Web authoring software, create a new profile
under WS-FTP for uploading your personal web pages.
On most FTP applications
you will see two windows, one for the "Local System" (your personal computer),
and one for the "Remote System" (SkyPoint's system). If you didn't enter the
~/www and go directly to your Web directory in the last step, you will have
to get there by clicking on files in the "Remote Host" window. You will see
that your username is the directory heading; under that you'll see "ftp" and
"www" as subdirectories. Select "www" and open it. Under that subdirectory,
you'll see "reports", "htdocs", "log", and "cgi-bin" subdirectories. Open
the "htdocs" subdirectory.
Move the mouse cursor
to "Local System" Window and locate and click on the file that you want to
use as your page or graphic on your Web site. You will see it is now highlighted.
As soon as it is highlighted, you can click on the arrow pointing towards
the "Remote System" window or press the the "Put File" button to upload the
file to your web page directory. A copy of the page or graphic will automatically
be made on our server.
At this time, if you
are a PC user and are uploading your "index" page, rename it "index.html".
Remember that many computer systems are absolutely literal! Proper use of
upper and lower case letters is vital, e.g. "test.html#034; is a different
file than "Test.html" as far as Web software is concerned. For example, if
you refer to one file from another via hyperlink but have a capital letter
in the wrong spot, it won't jump - so ensure that your case is correct!
This completes the procedure
to upload your web pages and graphics to create your Personal Web Site on
SkyPoint. You will see your Personal Web Site appear in the master index within
a few hours.
The URL for your homepage
is: http://www.skypoint.com/~login-name/
For example, if my login
name is keng, my WWW homepage URL is: http://www.skypoint.com/~keng
