WSG Newsletter: Homesteading on the Web

Issue: October 30, 2000

Ready for a Personal Web Site?

Have you been thinking about setting up a web site and are wondering how to go about it? Perhaps you have a special interest and would like to develop it on the Web for yourself or for a volunteer organization you work with. You might be planning a family reunion and need a place for photos and stories. You could be a writer and wish to self-publish. Perhaps, you have a home business and would like to sell your products over the Web. Where, you ask, is it possible to do all this, and for free?

Welcome to homesteading on the World Wide Web! In this newsletter we feature sites on the Internet that provide personal web page hosting for free. Next month, we’ll look into Finding Clip Art on the Web.

Homesteading

It’s easy. Stake out a claim at a service like Geocities, Tripod, Homestead or one of the others listed in this newsletter. The sites provide the space and the tools. Not to worry if you have never created a web page using HTML - the hypertext markup language that produces the look and the links. These sites also provide easy-to-use wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML editors.

Building your own website is straightforward. Start with a blank page or template provided by the service, then personalize it by pointing and clicking, or dragging and dropping different elements into the page. It’s as easy as using a word processor – maybe easier.

At many services you can include customizable features such as guestbooks, horoscopes, sound-clips, videos, graphics. Some have chatrooms – perfect for family gatherings or for meetings. Add a newsfeed or the local weather. Ask people what they think through a webpoll.

The free services tend to be generous with web hosting space especially in comparison to the amount your own ISP (Internet Service Provider) may or may not provide. Companies such as Compuserve, Bell Sympatico or Sprint generally only supply between 2 to 7 MBs of web storage space as part of their ISP package. In contrast, services like Geocities, Tripod or Homestead provide between 15 to 50 MBs of storage space, and for free. The extra space can come in handy when you have lots of graphics or other large files.

Of course, nothing is fully “free". One downside to using free web hosting are the banners and pop-up windows which most web hosting ventures use to advertise the various sponsors of the service. The companies providing webspace earn revenue by selling ad space on your web site. These ads can be quite annoying as they literally “pop-up” on top of your web page and must be closed in order to view the web page properly. Once closed, they stay closed until the next page of your site is accessed, and a then new pop-up ad will appear. Some web hosting services use banners at the top or bottom of your web site as a slightly less obtrusive form of advertising.

Web Hosting Sites

To begin building your own customized web page, choose a web hosting service and register. It is a good idea to read each company’s Privacy Policy and Statement of Terms beforehand, particularly if you are interested in using your site for commercial purposes. To get you started, here are five free web hosting companies reviewed briefly by TIG.

Netscape Web Sites:
home.netscape.com/websites

• 10 MBs (megabytes) of space
• URL in format of http://sites.netscape.net/
  [yournetscapeusername]/homepage
• Easy to use, point and click to move or change elements of webpage, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) available
• Add-ons include visitor counter, horoscopes, news headlines
• Small assortment of graphics, icons, backgrounds for use
• Netscape banner at top of webpage
• Netscape prohibits the use of personal sites for commercial use

Freeservers
www.freeservers.com

• 20 MBs of space
• Choice of URL formats: http://www.[yourname].bizhosting.com; http://www.[yourname].freeservers.com; http://www.[yourname].htmlplanet.com
• Easy webpage building tools, FTP access
• Includes add-ons such as guestbooks, and counters
• Choice of banner advertisements or pop-up window
• May be used for commercial purposes

Tripod
www.tripod.lycos.com

• 50 MBs of space
• URL format: www.[username].tripod.com or www.tripod.[username].com
• Easy webpage building tools, templates, FTP access
• Includes add-ons such as guestbooks, maps, voice chat and counters
• Choice of pop-up or banner advertisements
• Tripod does not allow the collection of personal information for commercial reasons

Homestead:
www.homestead.com

• 16 MBs of webspace
• URL format: http://yourname.homestead.com
• Easy HTML editors, templates, FTP access
• Add-ons such as guestbook, webpoll, clip-art and graphics library
• NO advertisements
• Uses I-drive to accommodate the storage and sharing of large files (MP3’s, photo albums, utilities)
• May be used for commercial purposes; Homestead provides e-commerce utilities such as shopping carts and secure on-line payments (in US dollars only)

Yahoo!Geocities
geocities.yahoo.com/home

• 15 MBs of webspace
• URL format: www.geocities.com/[username]
• WYSIWYG HTML editors, templates, FTP access
• Elements include guestbook, site statistics, counter and clip art
• Choice of pop-up ad or Geoguide banner
• May not be used for commercial purposes

There are many other free webspace providers on the Internet. The Google Web Directory has a category just for Web Hosting – Free – Personal.

Another way to compare wares is to search your favorite search engine with key words like “free” and “web hosting”. One note: although some hosts expressly prohibit adult content and otherwise offensive materials, not all providers are as rigid. You may wish to take this into consideration as some advertisements may be of questionable taste.

Free Stuff for Web Sites

There are hundreds of web sites that provide free items for use in your homepage. It is possible to find clip-art to dress up the pages. If you want to build community there are add-ons for chat rooms and message boards. If your site gets big enough there are free search engines. More advanced site builders will be interested in adding forms for surveys or guestbooks, or customizable java or cgi-scripts for jazzy applications.

Finding these is fairly easy too. Using words like “free” and “graphics” or other topic specific terms in your favourite search engines will turn up many intriguing possibilities. Here are a few to get you started.

Free Graphics:

The November TIG newsletter will be about finding clip art. For now a good starter site is GoGraph.com. GoGraph has a large searchable database of icons, clip-art, animated gifs, and photos. There are also tutorials for Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, two popular software products for making images.

Add-Ons for more Advanced Web Page Artistes

Looking for some interesting sound effects or midi files? Try Partners In Rhyme.
www.partnersinrhyme.com/

Isyndicate Express allows you to add newsfeeds to your webpage and keep your viewers up to date on the important issues of your webpage.
affiliate.isyndicate.com/

Want to add a form or questionnaire to your website? Now you can do it without knowing how to program. Response-O-Matic Free Form Processor does it all.
www.response-o-matic.com/
home.htm.

Free web polls can be obtained from Alx Web Poll. Ask your visitors questions. They'll come back to see the answers.
www.alxpoll.com/.

Halloween

It’s not ghosts and goblins but it still might spook. To conclude this halloween issue of TIG’s newsletter, we would like to leave you with a link to “The Unknown”. M. Micheal Fuhrer has created this Netscape website to report on unusual but true stories of the paranormal. There are one hundred “amazing episodes”. This site was listed in the Links Web Site Directory in the Sept/Oct 2000 issue of Sympatico’s Netlife.
sites.netscape.net/mmichealfuhrer/mainpage

Newsletter by Kirsten McKnight. Kirsten homesteads at Geocities. She wishes TIG subscribers a Happy Halloween. www.geocities.com/mcknighk/TIGhalloween.html. Check her home page for links to other interests.

Where to Next?

Return to list of newsletters.

Found through gograph.com