If you'll be authoring your own web pages, before you begin you should read through some of our most Frequently Asked Questions, listed below.  You'll find all the basics here which will enable you to successfully upload your HTML pages to the FOURnet web server.

This document does not attempt to teach you how to produce an HTML document.  This topic has already been covered extensively in numerous books and existing publications which are available both on the web and at your local bookstore.  Instead, this FAQ will give examples of some procedures which will be prove useful when uploading your pages to our server.

Since we are using open Internet Standards for the http, ftp, (and other) protocols, most generic operations that you will find described in HTML authoring books will work on our server.  The only things which are specific to FOURnet are the paths where you store your files (under your own login name, etc).

Before you begin your project, we recommend one of the many basic books available which will teach you HTML (even if you plan to use a WYSIWYG editor the knowledge will prove invaluable later on).  Be sure the book that you choose is Unix web server specific rather than NT based (most are). 

Table of Contents

1. How do I create web pages?
2. How do I publish my HTML pages at FOURnet?
3. How can I tell if I'm in the correct directory to publish my web pages?
4. I can't see my files after I upload them...
5. Where can I get more help?
6. Where is an example of using ftp?
7. My animated gif loads too slowly.  What can I do?

How do I create web pages?

Web pages are created using an editor program to enter HTML (HyperText Markup Language.  Using HTML is somewhat similar to the old days of Word Processing which may be familiar to those of you who have ever used a text mark-up word processor such as Word Perfect -5.1, Wordstar, etc. 

You can enter HTML markup using a very basic editor such as notepad.exe which is included with Windows.  Using this method, you will need to actually entered the correct markup yourself, which is a simple but cumbersome process.  This is a decent first introduction to using HTML, as it will give you a basic understanding of the underlying process of basic web page creation.

You can also obtain HTML editors which allow you to use a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface enabling you to leave the HTML markup to your editor program.  Many HTML editor programs are available, and newer Microsoft Office 97/98/2000 programs also include the ability to output HTML versions of documents.  A non-exhaustive list of HTML capable programs includes: Adobe PageMill, Netscape Navigator Gold, Hotdog Pro, Homesite, Publisher 98, Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Visual Page.

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How do I publish my HTML pages at FOURnet?

There are a number of tools available which can help you publish your web pages on one of FOURnet's servers.  First, make sure you have a starter web folder on our server.   You may already have a folder on our server if you requested one in the past.   To see if you have a folder, point your browser at the URL:  http://www.four.net/~your-login-name-here.   Once you locate your folder on our server, read the information included on your web page.  You will be viewing the actual HTML page that you can edit or replace with your own HTML text.  It's a good idea to copy and save the original file to refer to in the future, as it contains examples of how to access the built-in counter, and how to reference your image files.  To view the HTML source of this file, use your browser and point it to the URL, then select "View->Source".

If you can't find a folder associated with your login name, you can request that a web folder be setup for you by sending email to support@four.net.  

FOURnet offers various web services to suit your needs.  Check our services page to see which type you're interested in.  For the purposes of this document, it will be helpful for you to know what type of access account you have so that you will know how to access your web pages.

If you have an Express access account, then you can create your web page using our homepage helper form located at http://www2.four.net/cgi-win/form.exe/homepage

If you have a standard access account, you can access your web pages either using the Unix/Menu shell access, or you can use any ftp client.  Windows 95/98 includes a basic ftp client program which is accessible from the MSDOS prompt.  A simple, yet effective way to access the Unix/Menu shell if you have a standard access account is to use Windows Hyperterminal program which can be found on the Windows 95/98 menu under Start ->Programs->Accessories->Hyperterminal.]

NOTE: If you are a commercial customer or you have your own FOURnet Virtual Web Server (ie you have your own domain such as http://your-own-name.com) then you will be sending your files to a directory or folder within your own virtual server.  The path which is on your virtual server may not be the same as those listed below, so if you are a commercial or Virtual Domain customer and have questions about what your actual web root path is, please send email to support@four.net.

Standard Access or Express user's web pages are located by default in the following directory:

/u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/your-name-here

This is known as the "ABSOLUTE" path to your web root directory because it references the path directly and explicitly. 

Just as in other day-to-day situations, computers normally afford you several methods to arrive at the same end result.  In this instance, you can reference the exact same folder or directory on our server by using the path:

/u6/iserv/www.four.net/~your-name-here

You can use these paths to your web folder for configuring whichever program you will be using to upload your HTML files to our web server if your program uses ABSOLUTE paths.

If your program uses the RELATIVE path method, such as what would be the case if you login using the Unix/Menu shell or a simple FTP client, then you can either use the ABSOLUTE path listed above OR you can simply navigate to the "web" folder from your login directory.  Several ways to navigate to the web folder are:

If you're using Netscape to upload files:
Click on the WEB folder

If you're using a simple ftp client:
Type CD WEB and then press enter

If you're not sure whether your program uses ABSOLUTE or RELATIVE paths to upload files, then experiment using both until your upload is successful.

Please note that the messages delivered by various programs concerning success or failure of an operation are not always accurate and are sometimes downright misleading due to the program's inability to interpret actual messages that it receives from the server. 

The relative path is different than the absolute path because the relative path depends on which directory you are located in at the time, and the absolute path never changes because it is obtained in reference to the root filesystem.  When you login to your user account, you will normally be located in a directory such as /u5/your-login-name.  There will normally be a folder here called "web".   What this means is that you can upload your files to any of the following:

/u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/your-name-here
/u5/your-name-here/web

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How can I tell if I'm in the correct folder to publish my web pages?

The correct folder (also known as the web root directory) will contain a file called Welcome.html. This file is an INDEX file which means that it's the first file that the web server will read and send to the browser.  If there are a number of other HTML files located in your web folder, they can be referenced from this first file.  Since this will be the first file that people will see when they view your web site, you can create links from the Welcome.html file to other files and folders on your site.

UPDATE: Since so many programs default to the index file name of index.htm
we've modified the server to accept this as an index file alternatively to the name Welcome.html.  Now you can use either file name as the first file in a "folder" which the server will read.

If you're using an ftp client to reach your web site, you can use the command DIR or ls -al to view all the files and folders which are located within your web folder.]

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I can't see my files or images after I upload them...

Either you uploaded your files to the incorrect directory/folder or you failed to upload your files at all.  Other possible reasons are that you did not correct the file permissions so that your files would be readable.

To make sure your files are readable, login with your ftp client and type:

quote site exec chmod 644 <filename.html>

If you created a new directory or folder, then that folder must not only be readable, but must also be searchable by others.  For new directories which you have created, use the command:

quote site exec chmod 644 <filename.html>

Check that the paths which you're referencing to your images within your HTML file is correct.  If you have links such as:

<IMG SRC="mypicture.gif">

The file that the server will be looking for will have to be located in the same directory as your HTML files.  This may be OK for smaller web sites, but mixing up HTML, JPG, and GIF files all in the same directory when you have numerous files can become confusing, especially if your pages are being generated by a program which doesn't name each file descriptively (ie pag0001.htm, pag0002.htm). 

The usual convention is to place your image files in a "folder" inside your "web" directory.  The name of this folder should be "images".   The server will look in this directory for your images files, enabling you to use RELATIVE addressing to reference them rather than EXPLICIT paths.

<IMG SRC="/images/mypicture.gif">

will reference a file in the path:

/u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/your-user-name-here/images

in most cases.

Note: if you plan to do your own web pages, you'll need to learn how to accomplish the basics.  Please don't ask Technical Support to place pages or correct errors within your web site.  This is often an impossible task if you've used an automated program which generated hundreds of incorrect links because you supplied it with the invalid paths or parameters.  Additionally, all of our edits/corrections would only serve to become lost right away the very next time you upload your files again (your pages/links would once again be broken), until you set up your program correctly to generate appropriate links in the first place.   

We have hundreds of file uploads per day and we simply do not have the available staff to correct these problems.  If you need someone to work on your pages, contact sales@four.net for a referral or quote for the job you have in mind.

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Where can I get more help?

Whenever you look at a page on the WWW, you're looking at an example that you can learn from.  Just select View->Source to see the HTML Code which makes up that page. 

A visit to your local bookstore such as Barnes & Nobles or Amazon.com will give you access all the latest books on web publishing technologies and information about the newest versions of HTML. Remember, however, that books on the subject can become quickly outdated and obsolete, especially proprietary technologies.

Both Netscape and Microsoft maintain sites which cater to web site developers. 

Use your favorite web search engine to locate more information about web page development by entering the keywords "html AND authoring".

For general HTML help, you'll find a wealth of information on the web and in USENET newsgroups such as the resources below.

Usenet news groups are available for PPP users who have a news client installed and configured, such as Microsoft Outlook, Agent 99, Netscape Communicator, etc.  You can purchase these at your local software vendor or download Outlook Express or Netscape Navigator for free on the web.  Outlook Express is also included with Windows 98 on the CD.

Setup your the news reading client of your choice using news.four.net as the NNTP server and use mail.four.net as your SMTP, POP3, or mail server.

WEB URLS

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/

Or visit http://www.altavista.digital.com and enter:

There is a certain learning curve involved with authoring and publishing web pages and creating a web site.  You'll need to read up and polish your techniques at first.

No doubt there will be much trial and error.  Don't expect everything to work just as you expect it to at the click of a button without the need to learn the way of the web.

There are certain idiosyncrasies inherent in new technology that you will need to learn to work with, and sometimes around.  You should become versed in using the tools that will help you most easily accomplish the results that you're looking to achieve.  The most effective authors not only learn how to use these tools, but become adept at finding the newest and best; the toolbox should not be static, but must encompass the latest offerings.

There is no one source from which you can learn all that you need to know, and there will always be more to learn, as the state of the art is evolution.

If you find that HTML authoring and/or custom CGI programming is just not for you, FOURnet can author your pages for you at reasonable rates.  Contact us for more information about our Web site production services. 

If you have questions about your web pages which are specific to FOURnet (such as what is the path to your directory) please send email to support@four.net.  

If you have questions about our HTML production services or Commercial WWW services   including Virtual Domain Hosting and custom CGI programming or online database/catalog integration, please send email to websales@four.net and request a quote for your job. 

If you have questions about HTML authoring which are specific to an HTML authoring program which you've purchased, please contact your program's vendor because they will be in the best position to help (ie, Microsoft sells Frontpage, Hotquad sells Hotmetal Pro, Symantech sells Visual Page,etc). 

In most cases, companies will maintain extensive web sites containing invaluable tips and tricks for the users of their products as well as software patches and upgrades for registered users.  To get the most from these products, be sure to visit the associated support pages online.

Programmers will often say that it's a much harder job to first study, understand, and then debug another programmer's code than it is to write their own programs from scratch, and the debugging process usually takes a much longer time. 

For this reason, we regret that we are unable to debug problems with our user's CGI code or type up pages / fix broken links / on our customer's web pages at this time.  We will do the best we can to answer your FOURnet specific questions and point you to all the great resources available on the web which are at your disposal.

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Where is an example of using ftp?

Before you can be successful at transferring files from your computer to the FOURnet web server, you need to know:

The path/location of the files on your computer that you wish to upload.
The path/location of the WEB ROOT directory on the FOURnet web server where you should place your files.
The name of the computer that you wish to transfer files to.
Your username and password.
The name(s) of the files that you will transfer.

Because all Windows 95/98 users have access to the built-in ftp program, our example here will include a transcript from an ftp session using this simple client.  If you would prefer a graphical interface, obtain a program such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP.

The basic information will remain the same no matter which program you use to transfer your files whether you use the basic Windows 95/98 ftp client, a graphical FTP client, an Office compliant product with built-in file publishing capabilities such as Publisher 98 (these mostly just build in an ftp client module), the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard (this uses ftp), or the ftp options available with Frontpage.

Connect to FOURnet as you normally do.

Start an MSDOS session on your computer.

CD into the directory on your computer which contains the files that you wish to transfer to the web server at FOURnet.  If you don't already know the path of this folder/directory on your computer, you can use the Windows Explorer (alt-click on the Start button) or else use the FIND utility until you know what the path is to the files that you wish to upload.  It also helps to take notes about the path if you're in the habit of forgetting the file paths and locations of the files on your computer. 

This session assumes that the file that you wish to upload exists on your desktop and are called Welcome.html.

DOS Prompts: Bold Type
Comments: Blue
What you type: Grey   

Microsoft(R) Windows 98
     (C)Copyright Microsoft Corp 1981-1998.

C:\>  cd windows\desktop

C:\>\WINDOWS\Desktop> ftp ftp.four.net

Connected to FOUR.net.
220 FOURnet Information Network FTP server (x.x) ready.
User (FOUR.net:(none)): myusernamehere
Password required for (your-user-name): enter-your-password-here-&-press-enter
230 User (your-user-name) logged in.

ftp>

At this point, you are probably logged into your $HOME directory.   But this can be setup differently if you arranged this when you established your access account.  For most Unix/Menu shell access or standard access account users, at this point you will be logged into the directory:

  /u5/replace-this-with-your-own-login-name

In most cases, you can now type at the ftp prompt:

ftp> cd web

If you get a message such as:

550: web: No such file or directory.

Then it means that you'll need to use the absolute path to your web directory.

ftp> cd /u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/replace-this-with-your-own-login-name

You should see the message:

250 CWD command successful.

What this means is "Change Working Directory" command successful.

You can now verify that you're in the right directory to upload your files in several ways.  Type the command:

ftp> pwd
257 "/u6/iserv/www.four.net/users/your-name-should-be-here" is current directory.

ftp> dir Welcome.html
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
-rw-r--r-- 1 yournamehere www 1887 Jan 22 1998 Welcome.html
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 68 bytes received in 0.33Seconds 0.21Kbytes/sec.
ftp>

This message is a "directory" listing showing you that the file "Welcome.html" exists, the date it was last modified was January 22, 1998, and everyone has read permissions (rw-r--r--) on this file. 

You have now verified that you're in the correct directory to upload your web pages.

At the ftp prompt, let's set the mode to binary, so that we'll be sure to transfer our files intact, without any changes or DOS to Unix translations occuring along the way:

ftp> binary
200 Type set to I.
ftp>

The web page file that you created on your PC was called Welcome.html because you wanted to create the file that the FOURnet web server would see first.  But there's already a file called Welcome.html on the FOURnet web server, which was placed there as an example when your web folder was created.  When you upload your own file, it will overwrite the existing Welcome.html file on the FOURnet web server.  It's a good idea to preserve this example file and to download a copy before you overwrite the existing one.

Or you can simply rename it on the server while using ftp:

ftp> rename Welcome.html Welcome.old
350 File exists, ready for destination name
250 RNTO command successful.

Now we have a copy of our original Welcome.html file called Welcome.old on the Web server.  It's time to upload our version of Welcome.html from the PC to the FOURnet web server:

ftp> put Welcome.html
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Welcome.html.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp: 1887 bytes sent in 0.00Seconds 1887000.00Kbytes/sec.

It's important to remember that the "W" in "Welcome.html" needs to be uppercase, and that the web server won't think that the file "welcome.html" is your index file, so it won't read it before it reads all other files in your web folder.  It's also useful to know that the second file the web server will look for and give precedence is a file called "index.html"
ftp> quit
221 Goodbye.

C:\WINDOWS\Desktop>

Now launch your favorite browser, and point it to your web page at the URL:

http://www.four.net/~yourusernamehere   OR
http://www.four.net/users/yourusernamehere

You can also use Netscape to upload files to your web directory and soon you'll be able to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer (later versions).

The following example uses Netscape:

Connect to FOURnet as you normally do.

In the URL or address box type:

ftp://myusername@ftp.four.net

Once you're logged in, you'll be in your $HOME or /u5/yourusername  directory (as above in the ftp client example).

Click on the "web" folder.

Choose File->Upload from the Netscape menu, and upload your file using the same information supplied above for the ftp client example.

Note: This won't work with Microsoft Internet Explorer. You'll need to use the Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard instead of the browser if you're using IE.

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My animated gif loads too slowly.  What can I do?

Some of the ways to reduce image file size to increase graphics downloading speed are to reduce the number of colors in your image, resample your image to a smaller physical size (percentage reductions work very well), crop your image tightly, and or use an image reduction utility.  If your graphics files are larger than 15K or so, you should try to reduce the size because the downloading will be overly slow for viewers using a 56K or 33.6/28.8 modem.  Rather than wait for your images to load, visitors will just click away from your page.

Animated gifs are larger than normal gifs because consist of a series of gifs which are "stacked" in sequence, much like a film strip, to produce an animation file.  Try to run these through an optimization utility which reduces/eliminates redundant pixels from the file transmission.   Try not to use too many animated gifs or too many large graphics on a single page at once.

Remember that for each page, you need to add up the accumulated size of all the graphics together to get your total download time.

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