When you sign up with an ISP, you're given access to a chunk of disk space on their server, where you can store your images, HTML, and other files. Your next task is to get your site content from your PC or Mac to the server.

Some ISPs create easy-to-use procedures to assist inexperienced Web site owners with uploading stuff to the Web. We sometimes find that, in spite of their best intentions, these easy-to-use utilities are anything but. Fortunately, the hard way is actually not that hard. Using FTP software, you can get your stuff uploaded to a Web server in no time at all.

A free, easy-to-use Windows-based utility called SmartFTP is shown in Figure 4-4. Mac users can find similar functionality by using Fetch.

Figure 4-4: SmartFTP is a free Windows FTP client.

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If you don't already have an FTP client, download SmartFTP or Fetch now.

Get Started

Before you can set up access to your Web files on an ISP's server, you need to obtain some information from the company hosting your site. You'll need to know the address of the server you'll use, the directory into which your files will go, and a user name and password you can use to connect to the server. This information is usually provided when your account is activated. If you don't have it, call your ISP's tech support department or visit the ISP's Web site. You're looking for information about FTP access to your Web site files.

When you have this information, type it in to the appropriate boxes in the FTP client software, including your user name and password, and it'll connect you automatically. Now you're ready to upload.

To upload a file to your Web site using SmartFTP:

1. In the Folders pane in the top part of the SmartFTP window, select the FTP server folder you want to transfer files to.
2. In the Transfer Queue pane at the bottom of the window, click the Open button. Select All Files from the files of Type drop-down list, select your Web site files, and then click Open. Click the Start button. Your files are copied to the server.

As your files transfer, SmartFTP displays their status.

3. After you've finished uploading, select File > Disconnect to log off your Web site, and then select File > Exit to close SmartFTP.

It's usually a good idea to upload the files, keep your session active, and open your Web browser to see if you get what you expected. This way you can quickly make any needed changes, re-upload the changed file, and check to see that everything looks okay.

Test Your Web Site

After you've uploaded your site to the server, expect errors. Nobody creates her first Web site in one shot. Common problems you might find during testing are:

• Missing images: You may have forgotten to upload the image, or linked it incorrectly in HTML or the Web page editor.
• Your text is formatted incorrectly: You may have made a mistake in coding or formatting your Web page.
• The spacing of text or objects on the page is wrong: You may have misaligned something or left out a paragraph or line break.
• Hyperlinks don't work: A link may be wrong, or you may have neglected to upload the page you linked to.

Before you go live, you should fully test each page of your Web site. To do this, first test it on your computer by viewing the pages on your hard disk (locally) in a Web browser. Better yet, view it in a variety of browsers to ensure everything you've created is compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Browser, and Mozilla Firefox. Once you know everything looks good on your computer, upload all files to your Web site and then test, test, and test again.

Now That You Know the Basics

In this lesson, you learned about the workings of the Internet and the Web, you got some tips on registering domain names, and you learned how to upload your Web site files to a server. At this point, you should have a functioning site. Congratulations! Pat yourself on the back. If you're still not quite there, take some time to visit the Message Board and get some tips from your instructor and classmates.

If you think you've got the material down pat, take a stab at the quiz, exercise your new skills with the end-of-lesson assignment, and visit the Message Board to show off your site.

When you're ready, proceed to Lesson 5 to learn different ways of integrating multimedia into your Web site.