Information on WWW and creating a home page. SoVerNet customers are welcome to post a reasonable web page on our server at no additional cost. We consider reasonable to be up to 5 MB (megabytes) for single-user accounts, and up to 10 MB for multi-user accounts. The following cgi-bin scripts are currently available: archie bsdi-man calendar date finger fortune imagemap* post-query* counter* formmail.pl For an example of how 'finger' would work, try: http://www.sover.net/cgi-bin/finger *For a demo of image maps, forms, and the counter check out: http://www.sover.net/demo/ The formmail.pl script was designed to email the contents of a web form to an address specified by the person creating the form. There is information about configuring your forms to use the formmail.pl script available at the web site of the script's author. http://worldwidemart.com/scripts/readme/formmail.shtml You can check the stats for your (or any) SoVerNet page at: http://www.sover.net/stats.html For multi-user accounts who have registered their own domain name, we offer virtual web site addressing (for example): http://virtualdomain.com If you are planning on incorporating your URL address into your advertising you may want to consider virtual addressing, as transition to an alternate server can be handled smoothly should it become necessary. For background information about registering your own domain, try http://rs.internic.net/ then send email to staff@sover.net for more details. (Domain requests that reference SoVerNet MUST go through SoVerNet) To upgrade a single user account to multi user SoVerNet needs a signed service agreement (available by sending email to info@sover.net) We do not provide lessons in HTML authoring, and we do not design pages. You will have to learn on your own, or hire someone to write your page for you. There are many good books (and more every day) and many good resources on the web itself. There are also many SoVerNet users who are offering varying levels of expertise in web assistance. If you have not already done so, take some time and browse the three lists of SoVerNet home pages. There is the list of individuals (what we call the User index) the list of commercial organizations, and the list of non-profit and educational organizations. All three are linked to the SoVerNet home page at http://www.sover.net/ Remember that most browsers have the option to VIEW SOURCE, this will show you the HTML code that made the page you are looking at. Look at what other SoVerNet users have done and use VIEW SOURCE to see how they have done it. Steps to creating a "home page." 1. Create your HyperText Markup Language (HTML) source . This can be done using any text editor. Specialized Web authoring software is not required, though some people choose to use it. Most web browser have a "view source" option where the HTML code for the page you are looking at can be viewed. (and copied and pasted and edited) 2. Establish an FTP connection to the web server. The address is www.sover.net You can use either an FTP client program, or the shell (UNIX) ftp command. Brief instructions are included here for BOTH methods. For Windows users, WS_FTP is a fairly standard FTP client program. For Mac users, Fetch is a fairly standard FTP client program. With an FTP client program, just connect to: www.sover.net From the shell prompt, type ftp www.sover.net Use your SoVerNet username (don't add a capitol P) and password to log in. Connecting to the web server (with your username and password) will land you in your home directory on the www server. You now need to make a directory called 'www' (without the quotes) With an FTP client program, look for CREATE DIRECTORY (or something similar) from the program screen or menus. From the shell ("ftp>") prompt, type 'mkdir www' (without the quotes) NOTE: if you want to see if you have successfully created the www directory already, do the following... With an FTP client program, the www directory should be showing From the shell ("ftp>") prompt, type 'ls' (without the quotes) 3. Put the file(s) you created in step 1 in the directory you created in step 2. The top-level file must be named 'index.html' (without the quotes). Be sure all the files you upload go in the directory called www in your home directory on the web server. With an FTP client program, select the www directory, then choose the files on your computer that you want to upload to your www directory on the web server. From the shell ("ftp>")prompt, type 'cd www' then 'put filename' (filename should be the name of a file on the system you are running ftp from, typically granite) Repeat 'put filename' until you've uploaded all the files. NOTE: Be sure the text files you upload are plain text files, and be sure other files (like GIFs (.gif) or JPEGs (.jpg) ) are in an appropriately generic format that they will be readable by all browsers. If you prefer to use .htm instead of .html that will work. 3b. Virtual domain clients. A separate subdirectory will be set up for you when SoVerNet creates the virtual domain. This subdirectory will work exactly like the www directory does. To create a virtual domain, you will need a multi-user account and your own registered domain name. Send email to staff@sover.net for more details. 4. Your Uniform Resource Locater (URL) is: http://www.sover.net/~userid/ where "userid" is your SoVerNet user name. NOTE: You must have a file called index.html which will be the first file that comes up when your URL is accessed. If it is not there, or not EXACTLY titled index.html a directory will appear, not a file. 4b. Virtual domain clients your URL will be (for example): http://www.virtualdomain.com Files stored in the virtual domain subdirectory will appear at your URL. Files stored in the www subdirectory (if you make one) will appear at http://www.sover.net/~username/ (for example) 5. When you're done, email to "webmaster@sover.net" and indicate whether you are requesting to be linked to the user, the commercial or nonprofit/educational index. Please include enough info so we can write the link without having to recontact you. You can view the indices to familiarize yourself with the formats. You can request a link on any one of the indexes or the user index and either the commercial index or the non-profit index as appropriate. Please LOOK at the indices so you know what they are. All three are linked to SoVerNet's home page: http://www.sover.net/ The user index can be viewed at: http://www.sover.net/userindx.html Listing is by Real Name and User Name. (We will use info from 'finger' file as the default) The commercial index can be viewed at: http://www.sover.net/commindx.html A small graphic, and a short text link can be included. The graphic should be small (not more than 3,500 pixels). It will be formatted to a height of 35 pixels and a width of 100 pixels. Please just tell us WHERE the graphic is (Example http://www.sover.net/~userid/images/logo.GIF) Please DON'T send the graphic itself to webmaster. The text should not be qualitative. (Example "Joe's Diner, Southern VT Cuisine" not "Joe's Diner The Best Southern VT Cuisine in the World"). Note, if you are requesting a link on the commercial index we usually need SOME clue what to say. We'll look at the finger info and use it if appropriate, but it's better to request your own text. The non-profit index can be viewed at: http://www.sover.net/nonpindx.html It is appropriate for schools and other non-profit entities. Guidelines are basically the same as for the commercial index.