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Up thereThe Web design guru David Seigel once admitted that he spent months making Web pages before realising he didn't have to load them on a server to look at them. You can create an entire Web site off-line on your hard disk, viewing it all the while through the same Netscape or Internet Explorer that you use to browse on-line. (In Netscape, you substitute file:///C| for c:\ for in your browser's command line; Internet Explorer accepts the plain old disk address c:\whatever). You can even create your own page to use as your start page. But once you've got usable pages in place, playing on your hard disk will probably lose some of its allure. After all, the Web is designed to let those 40 million users see your thoughts and creativity. So you'll probably want to put some pages on the Web itself.
Dial FTPOnce you've chosen a server and paid for access, you can upload your pages using a program designed for FTP (File Transfer Protocol, since you asked). Each and every one of these programs will ask you for what may sound like obscure details of your Web server - but your Internet service provider or other Web host should have all of these details to hand. (If they don't, you may want to question how good they really are).Entering this information should be simple. Microsoft has a much-touted Web Publishing Wizard that makes it hard. I'm not the only one to give up on the product in disgust. After several hours with Mr Gates' dysfunctional wizard, I turned to a true freeware program, downloadable for nothing but your online time. FTP Explorer was created by Alan Chavis to comfortingly mimic the appearance of the Windows95 Explorer. Neither the most compact FTP program nor the fastest, it nevertheless set up and did the job in fine fashion. The alternatives to FTP Explorer are a second freeware program, WS-FTP, and a shareware program called (don't ask me why) CuteFTP. Cute can be downloaded for nothing, like the other two, but you're morally obliged to pay $US30 if you keep using it. Though it's not clearly $US30 better than FTP Explorer, it takes up less space on your disk, works faster and gives you a slightly better view of what's going on. You can read information about and then download both FTP Explorer and Cute FTP. They are also commonly included in shareware disks sold with computer books and magazines such as Australian Personal Computer.
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