After you launch Yahoo! PageWizard, as described in the previous section, you’re just a few quick-and-easy steps away from having your own Web page.
1. Enter your name and (optionally) the e-mail address you want to have appear on your Web page, and then click Next.
If you don’t want to publish your work e-mail address, or heavily used personal e-mail address, on the Web — where it might be copied into spammers’ lists — consider creating a Yahoo! e-mail account for the pur-pose of publication. Go to mail.yahoo.comto sign up; if you do create a new address, remember to check it. Or, just don’t enter an e-mail
address at all; you don’t have to.
At any point in the wizard process, you can preview your page as you build it. Just click the Preview button where it’s available. You can close the preview when you finish with it; just don’t close the underlying Personal Page Wizard browser window!
After you click Next, the Pick Your Picture Web page appears.
2. Choose a picture — a picture you upload, the default stick figure image, or no picture. Then click Next.
If you want to upload a picture, GeoCities allows you to pick any image from your hard disk in any of the following Windows formats: .jpg (JPEG), .gif(GIF), .tif(TIFF), .bmp(Windows Bitmap), or .png Figure 2-5:
Six items, six minutes, one home page.
(Portable Network Graphics). See Chapter 9 for more on these formats and on obtaining images. (After you upload one or more pictures, you can use them by choosing them from the Pick from your account drop-down menu.)
Don’t publish an image you don’t have rights to on your Web page. No sense in inviting a call from someone’s lawyer.
After you click the Next button, the Describe Yourself Web page appears.
3. Enter a description to appear in the About Me section and a list of your hobbies to appear in the Hobbies and Interests section and then click Next.
In the description of yourself, leave out hobbies and interests; they’re in the next section. You may want to include where you were born and live, what kind of work you do, and similar information. Don’t give too much information, though; a scam artist can get credit in your name with just a few pieces of data such as your full name, address, and mother’s maiden name.
In the Hobbies and Interests text box, keep it brief, for now, but make it interesting; your hobbies and interests may be as individual to you as your fingerprint.
After you click Next, the Enter Your Favorite Links Web page appears.
4. Enter a description and the URL for up to four of your favorite Web links and then click Next.
Enter several favorite links. And don’t worry about the small number of links; you can change the links later, or add more links using other tools.
After you click Next, the Describe Your Friends and Family Web page appears.
5. Type a description of your friends and family and then click Next.
Say something about your family — the one you came from, as well as your spouse and kids, if you have such. Emphasize anyone who has a personal Web page that you can link to — or anyone who will be espe-cially thrilled to see their name on the Web, such as kids. Again, be care-ful about giving too much detail, such as a care-full name, that scam artists could use.
After you click Next, the Enter Your Friends and Family Links Web page appears.
6. Type in links to friends and family members’ Web pages. Then click Next.
You can link to family members’ Web pages. If you don’t know of any, just leave all the entries blank.
After you click Next, the Name Your Page Web page appears.
7. Enter a page name for your personal page. Then click Next.
The name you enter becomes part of your Web page’s Web address. For instance, if you use the default name, “personalpageblue,” the Web page’s complete address is www.geocities.com/yourname/personal pageblue.html. We suggest you rename it something shorter, such as
“mybluepage.”
If you want to make this your site’s home page, name it index.htm. (Not a bad idea; if you do this, the URL someone needs to type to reach your page is simpler: www.geocities.com/yourname). You can always move the page around within your site later if needed. When you click Next, the wizard tells you that a page already exists by that name, and asks if you want to replace the page. Choose Yes.
After you click Next, the Congratulations! page appears.
8. Click the link to view your new Web page.
Your new Web page appears in a window, as shown in Figure 2-6.
9. Write down or save your Web address and return to the wizard and click Done.
You probably want to improve your Web page quite a bit from here (don’t forget to check your spelling!), but you’re off to a great start. Send your new Web address to your friends, and take a well-deserved break!
Reproduced with permission of Yahoo! Inc. 2000 by Yahoo! Inc. YAHOO! and the YAHOO! logo are trademarks of Yahoo! Inc.
Figure 2-6:
Houston, we have a Web page.