NWA-PCUG 05/2000 NewsLetter Article 18861 N. Hwy 112, Springdale, AR 72762-9303 A Web Site for Everyone - Part 2: Reserving your web site NOW! by Stephen Morgan, stevem@apcug.org Web site growth is on an incredible tear right now. Total web pages grew from 320 million to 830 million during the last 2 years. There are personal web sites devoted to everything from Jimmy Stewart (http://members.aol.com/JimStewAC/home.htm), to watching dancing hamsters (http://hamsterdance.com). Want to join in? It's a lot easier than you might think! There are several ways to create your own web site, and next month, we will be discussing many of the options. But first you need to make an important decision. Where do you want to put your Web Site and what kind of web address meets your needs? Here are 4 alternatives 1. Place your web site with a commercial company that will insert advertising on all your pages. Companies like geocities, afreehome, and cybercities will give you up to 50 megabytes of space for your web site. All your visitors have to put up with is the advertising, and all you need to put up with is an address that can be up to 50 characters long. 2. Internet Service Providers (ISP's) usually provide free space to members. Offers range from 2 to 20 megabytes. There is no advertising on these pages, nor are you allowed to use the pages for advertising your own products. The address is usually just a subset of the ISP's, such as http://users.earthlink.com/, so the address is a little bit easier to remember. Don't worry about not having enough space! I have put up several web sites for friends that chose this option. With minimal graphics, it is easy to put up a 20-page website in 2-3 megabytes of space. 3. Pay a monthly fee to have a commercial site host your web pages. This is where you can create your own web address, hopefully something easy to remember. But first you need to check to see if anyone else has already grabbed it. Be prepared to change your dream name a little, perhaps by adding a number to the name. After all, with 20,000 domain names registered every week, good names are getting scarce. This option also allows you to have email that incorporates your web site name, such as yourname@yourname.com. Many of the companies that host web sites will allow you 3-10 email names per site, this is great for family members or employee's to have personal email address's that are tied to the web address. A good site to check out this option is www.register.com. Register.com also has competitive web site hosting prices of $25.00 per month, and free sign up, for 40 megabytes of space and 10 email accounts. There is also a charge of $40.00 to $100.00 to register your web address for 2 years. 4. Pay to Register your own web address, and use it to redirect people to your free web address. This solution is a great way to start up your web site, and the one I recommend for people just beginning their web sites. Since most web sites start small and then build on the original foundation, you can go months or years without paying a monthly fee for someone to host your web site. Wait until you grow your web site over the limits of your free web space before paying to have a commercial site host your web pages. For an example of this, check out the "personal identity account" at www.domaindirect.com. For a fee of $70.00 they register your web address for 2 years, and will automatically forward anyone who types in your personal address to any other site you designate. In other words, you can have your personal domain name and use it with your free web site. I am a great believer in registering your own web name. In a world that is increasingly faceless, it is a way to be unique, a way to say: Here I am, this is me! I also think it is important to get one right now. There are not enough good website names out there, make sure that you register your personal name before someone else gets it first. Then a small yearly fee is all it takes to retain that name into the future. Next month we will conclude this series with several easy (and some not so easy!) ways, to create content for your website. This article is furnished as a benefit of our membership in the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization to which our NWA-PCUG belongs. The author, Stephen Morgan, is a member of the Plateau PC Users Group in Crossville, Tennessee. He is also a member of the APCUG Board of Advisors, representing North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.