Your own personal web space with Virgin Media allows you to publish your very own site on the World Wide Web. Many professional web site design companies exist who can (for a price) create a site for you, but there is lots of fun to be had in creating one yourself. We have provided this page for Virgin Media customers as a starting point from which to build a successful web site presentation.
The first things you should consider before creating a web site are:
- What do I want the site to achieve?
- Who is the site going to be aimed at?
- What content is the site going to have?
- How often do I want to update the site?
Once you have the answers to these questions you can start planning your site. The more thought and attention to detail put in during the planning stage, the easier it will be to create and maintain.
How do I actually create a web page?
All pages on the World Wide Web are created using the HyperText Mark-up Language (or HTML for short). HTML pages are created using text editors and uploaded into your personal web space via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software. When a web browser sends a request to the Virgin Media World Wide Web server, the server responds by sending back the requested HTML file, which the browser then interprets and formats into a page displayed in the browser's main window.
HTML is relatively easy to learn and there are many sources of reference available. One particularly good resource for learning HTML is HTMLHelp.com.
Virgin Media and HTML Help bring you the HTMLHelp.com UK mirror to help you with all your needs to create a website that is web friendly through use of correct HTML code. The site also has its own validator to help you check your code so that it is fully web friendly [or as friendly as possible, depending on what you are trying to do]. The mirror is hosted by Virgin Media -- and at the edge of our network for speed of access and use of both our users and others.
HTMLHelp.Com is run by the Web Design Group [WDG] and is committed to "promote the creation of non-browser specific, non-resolution specific, creative and informative sites that are accessible to all users worldwide." Click on the link below to visit their site.http://www.htmlhelp.com/
The following links also contain useful information about creating web pages and learning HTML:
http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/primer.htmlYou can create your HTML pages using a plain ASCII text editor such as Windows NOTEPAD, but there are many other editors designed to automate some of the common tasks used when composing HTML. Some are designed to insert tags (for users who have a good knowledge of HTML) and others are "What You See Is What You Get" (WYSIWYG) editors.
Once you've played around with HTML for a while, you will want to start including images, photos and graphics to improve the look of your pages. Keeping in with the spirit of the web, there are hundreds of free web sites out there that provide free icons, images and backgrounds available for public use:
http://www.ender-design.com/rg/Once you have created your web pages, you will need some FTP software in order to upload the files into your personal web space.
Once your site is up on the web, you will need to let people know where to find it. You can advertise your site in a number of ways, but the main method is to be included in search engines such as Yahoo, UKPlus and Excite. You can register your site for free at these sites but a method worth considering is to mass-register using the free service provided by Submit It!.
Advanced web authoring
Recent advancements in web browsers allow web pages to incorporate interactive features and multimedia. Scripting languages such as JavaScript and VBScript allow web authors greater control over the way their pages look and respond to user input.
PERL (practical extraction and reporting language)
For Common Gateway Interface (CGI) processing, the most commonly used language on the Internet is PERL (a language based on C and the Unix utilities 'sed' and 'awk'). Another language that is extending the capabilities of web pages is JAVA , an object oriented language based on C++.
To sum up
Creating a web site can be great fun and a wonderful medium from which to reach out across the globe. The more thought and care you put into your web site, the more successful the site will be. Try to offer something new to your readers and listen to their feedback. A successful site is one that develops and grows over time.
