Getting Started...
Special Note: By Right Clicking on, and selecting "Open in New Window", you can click any of the text links below, and they will open in a new window, allowing you to work with these lessons, and with your new site open at the same time!
First- Open a FREE account at Yahoo/Geocities, by CLICKING HERE! Click on the link "Get a free home page>" Then click on the link "Sign Me Up" and fill out the form... Piece of cake!
When you get the confirmation screen showing the Login you have chosen, click on the "Build Page Now" and get started! If you stop for lunch, don't worry, you have been emailed the link and your login information to go back and work on your site.
We will be discussing and using the 'drop and drag' Yahoo Page Builder. Choose that link and click on it, or if you have to login because you stopped for lunch, find the Yahoo Page Builder anywhere, and click on it. You might have to login again...
We are not going to use any templates, as we are going to build this page the fun way, from scratch. Just hit the "Launch Page Builder" when you are at the Page Builder Site. Be patient, it takes a while to load and open.
All I want you to do for today at your site is to NAME and SAVE it. That's all there is to do, as you have not uploaded any animations of fun things to put on your site. There are a lot of animations available to you right in the page builder, but we aren't going to use them, as they are rather lame, and we are going to learn how to upload things to use...
When the Page Builder finally opens, hit the TEXT link in the top toolbar. A box will appear that you can stretch to any size, so now make it large enough for a headline. Click IN it, and your cursor will appear. You can use the Font Setting in the toolbar to set your font larger for a headline... Type in the NAME for your site. You can change it at anytime, so don't get hung up here... Then click OUTSIDE the box, and the original screen and toolbar will reappear. You can drag the whole test box to the top and slightly to the left by clicking on it and holding...
Click the Preview button to see the curse of all free sites... The Dreadful Yahoo Advertisement Box... you won't be able to get away from it... anywhere.... just make sure you have left room for it. That is what you are checking now. Close the Preview Window.
In the normal screen, you can again drag the whole text box that your Site Name is in away from the ad box, if you are crowding it... Keep your site content slightly to left anyway, to accomodate small windows in your visitors' browsers...
Now, SAVE your page by clicking on the SAVE button. Here comes the trickey part... When the the save box opens, click on the "index" page, so that becomes the name of this page.
Then click SAVE or OKAY. A warning screen might come up, though not always, and says that you are over-writing an existing file... Do you want to do it? YES! Overwrite it. Your web address will then be-
http://geocities.datacellar.net/username/
or whatever your chosen username was... Any other way will give you a LONG URL with another file in the address and a ".html" on the end.
Our real lesson for today, or tomorrow, is to find some animations, a background, some music, and get it saved to your computer so you can upload it to your site HERE, at Yahoo/Geocities. Learn the mechanics of it now, then your future pages will be better, and this one can be changed infinitely, once you get used to the online software...
You can obtain a LOT of nice animations and music at Spike's Place. There are some rather weird ones available for your use right in the Page Builder, too. We will concentrate on getting our OWN! To learn how to Copy animations to your computer, and practice doing it, go on to the next lesson-
SAVING ANIMATIONS TO YOUR HARD DRIVE
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