Welcome to the Askjerry Tutorial Page

    This page was created because I have had several people ask me if it was difficult to create a web page, if it was expensive, and if it would be too hard for them to learn. The answer is a resounding NO! It is not very difficult to create a web page, and it is even possible to do so for free. The fine folks at http://www.zymic.com just happen to offer a free hosting package. Not only that... but there are free tutorials, forums, and the site will even allow you to use FTP to upload files. (That's a convient way to load mutiple files at one time without needing to use a slow browser upload form.) If all that wasn't enough, they even have PHP set up... an advanced programming language that allows some pretty incredible web pages to be built.

Let's get started!

    You are going to need some software to create your web page, and you are going to need to be able to get your creation uploaded to the server (a computer connected to the internet where your site lives.) I have found two really great software packages that are both 100% FREE. (You gotta love free stuff!) The first program is called Kompozer and it is a very simple to use, but yet very powerful tool for creating web pages.


KOMPOZER

Go to http://kompozer.net/  to download your version of the software as a ZIP file.  Once you have the file downloaded you will need to extract it to your hard drive. I recomend placing it into the folder C:\Program Files\Komposer so that it will be easy to locate. Create a desktop shortcut for the Kompozer.exe file on your desktop. This way you will be able to find the program when you want to make changes to your web page.


FILEZILLA

Now that you have the ability to create a web page you will need to upload it to the server for the rest of the world to see. The best program that i have found  which is also 100% free is Filezilla.  This progam will have a split screen... your computer on the left, and the server (anyplace on earth) on the right. If you want a file on the server... just drag  it from your computer (left) to the server (right).  Need to get a file from the server to back up or make changes? Just drag from the right to the left. Yes... it's that simple. Go to http://filezilla-project.org and download your copy now... I'll wait.



ZYMIC WEB HOSTING

Now that you can create a web page and relocate the files to the internet... you need a place to put them... and ZYMIC will let you do just that for free. So as it stands right now... you will be creating your own custom web page for $0.00 which is a great thing. Let's go to http://www.zymic.com and get a web page set up now.

Since setting up an account may vary I am not going to list all the steps at this time... but what I will say is that you should carefully choose your nickname as it will become the name of your site on Zymic. So for example... I picked "Askjerry" because my name is Jerry... and every time someone has a question they kept saying... wait for it... "Ask Jerry!" And... as you can see... this web site is now created as http://askjerry.zxq.net (Don't click on it... you are already here.)

You will get an email with some VERY useful information... be sure to write it down someplace where you won't forget it... or loose it. It's like the keys to your car... without them... you are not going very far in web design. I usually copy the information into NOTEPAD or WORDPAD and save it as logon.txt so that I can always locate it. If you put it in the same folder as your web site... just be sure NOT to upload it to your site or anyone could then take over your page! I have a folder on my hard drive (and a copy on my thumb drive) that I keep the files in.

Ready to get started? Then CLICK HERE to move on to page 2.