The Wellspring

So, you’ve registered a domain name, signed up for a domain name service (DNS) and arranged web hosting - you’ve got a place on a web - so what to do with it?

There are two basic elements that most people will want to use: a website of some sort, and email. Let’s deal with each of these.

How to construct a website depends largely on what you want.

Static information (such as a general biography, resume, and contact information or contact form) can be easily produced by using programs that will generate HyperText Markup Language (HTML, the code that specifies what content is displayed on the web) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS, the code that specifies how content is displayed) for you like Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage. These programs use a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) interface, making it simple for you to pull together different elements into a useable site. Alternatively, you can learn HTML and CSS yourself. This isn’t particularly difficult (and it’s useful to know a little bit of both of these, in any case), and affords a much greater degree of control. Regardless, construction of a website usually involved developing a website and testing it on your own computer before transferring it to your webhosting provider’s servers so that it is viewable by the rest of the world (at http://www.yourname.com/). This is usually done via File Transfer Protocol (FTP), using details provided by your webhosting provider. Popular FTP clients for Windows include WS_FTP and CuteFTP. Mac users might like to try Cyberduck (free!) or Transmit. The technical and design considerations of building a website are numerous and beyond the scope of this tutorial: but numerous websites like Webmonkey offer detailed articles on the subject.

If you intend to update your website regularly and are not too fussed about what it looks like, consider developing a web log, or blog. A blog is a type of website, regularly updated with information in reverse chronological order. Blogs usually offer syndication of content (meaning that, instead of visiting the blog regularly to check for new content, you can subscribe to a blog’s feed via a reader program and be updated only when new content is published), and an automated mechanism that allows the content creator to easily update the website. Blogger, Windows Live Spaces, Yahoo! 360 and Myspace are all examples of blogging software, though these platforms are usually hosted on their servers (giving you uglified addresses like http://yourname.blogspot.com/, rather than prettified addresses like http://www.yourname.com/). The two main user-hosted blogging platforms are WordPress (a free, open-source effort which I use for this blog and recommend highly), and MoveableType (which is free for personal bloggers, but costs if you are using it for commercial purposes). Both packages offer detailed instructions for installation (WordPress is especially easy to install), which involves uploading the files to your server, setting up a database, and running an installation script. Once you’ve installed the platform, pick a presentation template (or download another from the web) and you’re ready to start writing. Despite sounding slightly daunting, most installations are quite straightforward, and ample support is available from the communities of users who use both products. (New Zealand web developer Rachel Cunliffe has an especially good screencast tutorial on how to setup a Wordpress installation - including installing the database, uploading the files, configuring the installation, writing posts and uploading images, and installing plugins - at http://www.cre8d-design.com/blog/2006/08/20/wordpress-screencast-tutorial-1/.)

Lastly, you might also consider installing a wiki on your webspace. A wiki (popularised by Wikipedia) is a space where anyone can establish, develop and refine information. Wikipedia has all sorts of articles, but smaller wiki usually contain articles around specific subjects. Like a blog, editing information on wikis is pretty painless, and does not require knowledge of HTML or CSS. I’ve found Wikis especially useful where you want to centralise information that a group has on a specific subject, or where you want to quickly document work on a particular project (which works well if you discuss issues by email and then document outcomes on the wiki). Wikipedia uses the MediaWiki platform, but I’ve found it to be quite unwieldy (when installed, it’s over 10MB and requires a MySQL database) for most purposes. A simpler, easier-to-manage platform that I’ve used with much success previously is PmWiki (which when installed is just less than 1MB and stores its information in plain text files, which can be easily backed-up and recovered). Again, refer to the platform’s own documentation for step-by-step installation instructions.

Of course, you can mix these different web applications together. You might like to have, as I do, a blog at the top level of your domain, a static page about you in a subdirectory (see http://www.alanwu.org/alanwu/) and a wiki in a subdomain.

If you can’t be bothered putting anything structured up on your website (and, if nothing else, having webspace can be useful for putting up random files that you want yourself and others to be able to access from anywhere in the world), you’ll be relieved to find that setting up email is a much less burdensome process. Given that it remains the internet’s most used protocol, and that setting email up on your domain name can give you an easy-to-remember, unembarassing email address (such as yourname@yourname.com instead of the sexy_sarah_2222@hotmail.com address you currently have but can’t put on your CV, or the s1938581785@student.someuni.edu.au address that you’ll lose once you graduate) for life. Again, it’s a matter of setting the whole thing up once, after which things should. just. work. (Hopefully.)

It used to be that, after you had paid to register a domain and signed up DNS hosting, you had to pay another provider to handle your email. No longer! Both Google and Microsoft now offer free services that allow you to set up and administer email addresses at your domain. Google’s offering, Gmail for your domain, gives you, predictably, the functionality of Gmail, including 2GB of storage and the ability to check your mail either through Gmail online or through the mail client of your choice (such as Microsoft Outlook Express or Apple Mail). Unfortunately, like many of Google’s products, it’s in beta testing and is accessible via invitation only. It’s worth putting your name forward and seeing if you get picked (I’ve several domains hosted with Gmail for your domain, and all of my applications to participate in the beta testing were approved in a matter of days). Failing that, you can try Microsoft’s (inferior) service, Windows Live Custom Domains, which is open to all. Windows Live Custom Domains doesn’t offer as much storage (a measly 25MB per address), and you have to check your mail through MSN Hotmail, (no direct mail-checking from your mail client allowed!), but beggars can’t be choosers, right?

Both services are, again, quite easy to establish and use, and come with detailed instructions. Set up requires adding Mail Exchanger (MX) records to your DNS (if you are using NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, click on the ‘domains’ tab, then the ‘Manage’ button under the ‘DNS’ column coinciding with your domain, then the ‘Add a DNS Resource Record’ link on the right sidebar). This tells your server to route incoming mail to your domain to the appropriate service. Once you’ve added these records, it’s simply a matter of logging into Gmail for your domain or Windows Live Custom Domains and adding email addresses and setting passwords. Then you’re good to go. Wee!

So that’s it. Don’t feel obliged to set up everything when you first get started - the best presences are planned and grow organically. Do, however, fiddle around and explore the software that is out there (there is an incredible open-source movement that develops all sorts of useful, free stuff). Once you’ve staked your claim to your space on the web, it’s yours as long as you keep it registered. Have fun!