Making Your Own Home Page

Introduction 

Welcome!  So you've decided that you are comfortable with the World Wide Web and the Internet, and now you want to be a part of it.  Congratulations!  Now, where to start.

What you need

There are a few things you need to make your own home page: Some people feel that you shouldn't need an HTML editor.  Technically, you don't need one, but it's much too confusing to even attempt to write a home page without some sort of HTML editor.  HTML stands for HyperText Mark-up Language, and is basically a set of codes that tells a computer how a web page is displayed.  Though there are many different HTML editors, this tutorial will be showing you how to use Netscape Communicator 4 and its Composer to write web pages.  I feel that this is one of the best editors available, and it is what I use almost exclusively.

Purpose is absolutely essential if you want to have a page that people, including yourself, will want to look at.  A web page can serve many different purposes.  For example, I use my home page mainly as a place that has the links that I use most often.  It's main purpose is for me to use as a launching pad for my Internet exploration.  It has a few other side purposes.  People can see some of the pictures I took on my class trip to Florida, and perhaps be entertained for a while by a few short stories and anecdotes.  You have to decide what your page is for, and only you can do that.

It is a fact that there are going to be a few failures along the way.  Building a web page isn't something that you can sit down and do in 15 minutes.  There are going to be situations where you expect to be able to do something that just isn't possible with HTML, even though it may seem very simple.
 

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