Web Site FAQCreate | Publish | Troubleshoot | Mailing a Form | CGI Scripts | Hit Counter | Password Protection | MS Frontpage
Once you have all of your content, you need to get it on your computer. Text can be in Word Documents, text files, or anytype of format that you like. You can scan in pictures and save them as JPG or GIF files for use on your web site.
Once all of your content is on the computer, you need to decide how you will present it on your
web site. Most word processors (including Microsoft Word and Sun StarOffice) can convert
documents directly into web pages (also known as HTML documents). You can also purchase or
download a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that creates HTML documents. Some
products that we suggest are:
Another option is to open a text editor like NotePad (for Windows) or Pico (for Unix) and write directly in the HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) format. This is easier than most people think, and we really suggest that you give it a try. The O'Reilly books are helpful with learning HTML.
Once all of your HTML documents are ready, you should collect them into one directory on your computer. All of your pictures, sounds, and videos should also be in that directory. Be sure that your document links are set correctly in that directory. Make sure not to refer to something on your C drive because it will not be available when you transfer the pages to our server. Double check that your links do not contain "C:\".
Your start page, or home page, should be titled "index.html". This will be the first page
that comes up when someone visits http://www.yourname.com. If you do not want to use the name
"index.html", you can create a htaccess file which states the file that should be your index
file. Create a file called ".htaccess" and put this line in it:
If you don't have a built-in publish button in your program, or you want
more control of the process of publishing, you should use FTP. FTP, or
File Transfer Protocol, is a simple way to transfer files from one
machine to another. You can use the DOS command "ftp", or you can
download a Windows program which has a nice GUI interface for
transferring files. Here are some FTP programs that we suggest:
When using FTP, you should connect to the host "www.yourdomain.com" using the username and FTP password you were issued. ProWeb users with dedicated IP addresses can also use their IP address to connect. If you are having trouble logging in, be sure you are connecting to the right host, using the right username and password. Your FTP password is NOT usually the same as your members password.
Once you have connected, ProWeb and ProShell customers upload your pages to the directory
where "username" is the main account username you used to log in with. This is not usually the same as your domain name, although it may be similar.
If you have a Webtrafix account on a Cobalt server, please upload to the
directory instead. The process is slightly different and is explained here.
ProWeb customers can setup extra FTP accounts in the Members Area which are restricted to specific directories in your account. These extra accounts can have their own usernames and passwords. Even if you don't have extra users, security can be enhanced if you setup an extra FTP account for your own use that is restricted to /home/username/public_html or some subdirectory of that. This way, if the password for this account should be stolen, it can easily be cancelled.
Transferring your files to the server is easy, but it will be different from program to program. Make sure to upload your text files in "Ascii" mode and your pictures, sounds, and videos in "Binary" mode. If you are using a Windows GUI FTP program, they will most likely select the mode for you.
Once everything is uploaded or published, you are done. You can now view your web site
Another common goof is not naming your page "index.html" and
consequently not deleting or replacing an existing file of that name, or
similar name. The symptom of this problem is that you still see the old
site page displayed on your site even though you KNOW you uploaded a new
site. Often people will upload an "index.htm" file and not realize that
there is a "index.html" or index.shtml file already there. These are
different names, but only one can be the index. Be sure to delete all
If you are receiving an "Access Denied" error on your web pages, the permissions may be
improperly set. To allow others to view your web pages, you'll need to have the proper
permissions setup. Most Windows FTP programs show permissions as Owner/Group/World. Here is a
small table that you should know:
<hr> <form action=FormMail.pl> <input type=hidden name="recipient" value="firstname.lastname@example.org"> <input type=hidden name="subject" value="A Message To You"> Whatever you type here will be mailed to JTAN:<p> <textarea name=comment cols=50 rows=2></textarea><br> <input type=submit name=send value=Send> </form> <hr>
Just copy that code into your page.
Change the address and subject value before you use it, of course. You can add whatever input
fields you need, and voila! You now have a form that mails. For more information on setting up
FormMail and configuring it, please look here.
Our servers are setup so that you can execute a CGI script from anywhere, not just in a cgi-bin directory. All you need to do is make sure that the file and directory is chmod 755, as we discussed earlier.
All Perl (CGI) scripts must startoff the "Pound Bang" line. It looks like this:
Sometimes scripts need to know the location of sendmail. This is usually /usr/sbin/sendmail but sometimes might be /usr/lib/sendmail. You can tell which one it is with the 'ls' command, or you can nag the "human ls command" -- another name for a JTAN administrator.
If you are writing a CGI yourself, you should program defensively and accept responsibility. Be thorough. Never forget, you are PROGRAMMING A COMPUTER, a science that some people get PhD's for studying. Be careful. You are allowing total strangers to run a program on our shared machine.
If you are running somebody else's CGI, you should never forget that most CGI authors don't program defensively or accept responsibility. They are never thorough. They think they are playing a video game, but in fact are PROGRAMMING A COMPUTER, a science that some people get PhD's for studying. Be careful. You are allowing total strangers to run a program on our shared machine that other total strangers have written.
Finally, take a look at the error_log when you are having trouble. It
can be found in /home/yourname/weblogs or in /usr/local/etc/httpd/logs,
or maybe even /var/logs/httpd. These are very valuable for debugging
CGI scripts. You can use the Unix command:
A classic CGI error is "Unexpected End of Script Headers", or something similar. In fancy words it means your script crashed and burned. This usually goes along with the infamous "Internal Server Error" page. Take heart. Many a good webmaster before you has seen these screens. Good luck.
Please change "yournamehere" to something unique (like your user name!) If you do it right you should see something like this:
Or if your site is real busy, this:
To learn more about the capabilities of our counter, please look at the the documentation.
Here we describe just one possible way, called "Basic Authentication".
If you have any questions about operating the FrontPage software, please ask Microsoft. Unfortunately we cannot help you use the editor, but we can help you if you are having difficulties with the extensions. Please direct any FrontPage questions to our tech support department.