Contrary to popular fiction, Al Gore did not create the Internet and the WWW (World Wide Web), DARPA did.

Whether you are just putting your self or your business out on the web or you have already established your self on the web, we can help you. Here are the basics on how you get you and your content on the internet and World Wide Web.

If you have your domain and hosting you can skip down to Step 4. Let us assume you just know you want to be on the web and the rest is new to you. Please read on.

Step 1: The absolute first step, is deciding what you want your web presence to be. You can have your self introduced on the web as a person, introduction or resume, or you can provide a service in information (how to) or (my photos) or sell products or services on the web. It is crucial to know what you want to do on the web in the first place.

Step 2: Next, In order to be on the World Wide Web (WWW) you need to have a URL (Uniform Resource Locater). In computing, a URL is a type of Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that specifies where an identified resource is available and the mechanism for retrieving it. In popular usage and in many technical documents and verbal discussions it is often incorrectly used as a synonym for URI. In popular language, a URL is also referred to as a Web and a domain address. These addresses are unique and registered. The core group of generic top-level domains consists of the com (commercial), info (information), net (network), and org (organization) domains. In addition, the domains biz, name, and pro are also considered generic, however, these are designated as restricted, because registrations within them are require proof of eligibility within the guidelines set for each. The www.YourDomainName.net makes up your unique domain name or address. You can go to various registration sites like register.com or godaddy.com, to see if a domain has been registered to someone else or remains available. This name gets translated to an IP (internet protocol) Address like 192.168.1.1, but that is an entirely different "science". Let us just say it is unique name and has to be unique. Therefore they need to be registered. For a, required, nominal price (charged by the registering body) you can "rent/own" your name for one year to forever or you stop renewing. If you do not have your name we can talk and walk you through this process.

Step 3: We have reached the "chicken or the egg" part of the exercise. If you have registered your domain name you will need to have a web site designed or created and it must be Published/Hosted on the web. Once you set up the hosting, your hosting contract lasts a minimum of a month to a few years or forever. Once you own your domain name, it is probably time to plan and build your web site. When you are happy and the site is ready to "go live", that is probably the best time to purchase your hosting account. Once you purchase the account, it will take the hosting vendor 24-48 hrs to set up your account and partition the space for storage of your web pages.

Step 4: You have a domain name registered, a web site created, and a hosting account. Now we make the changes you wish and when it is all set, we can publish the site to the web. This calls for putting the web pages on into the directories created for the physical location. Once the pages are in the hosting account directories, type http://www.yourdomainname.suffix and you will get your home page.