Archive - MacAllen's Internet Rockstar Guide

Introduction

In the weeks prior to writing up this site, several friends asked me for assistance setting up their own website; perhaps my own personal homepage was their inspiration. As a result, I decided to compile the information I gave them into an online instruction manual; if for no other reason but to reference it myself when trying to help them out.

Already on the web are literally thousands of sites dedicated to creating and publishing websites. One of the more definitive sites, Philip and Alex’s Guide to Webpublishing was a resource I used when I first started out.

There are several reasons why when my friends asked me how to set up their website I did not send them directly to Philip and Alex’s Guide to Webpublishing.

First, the book was written in 1994. Second,its author, Philip Greenspun has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT. While that makes him greatly more qualified then myself to write an explanation about building websites, much of Philip and Alex’s Guide is reserved for web nerds with more experience than my friends and the main target audience of this site. Because of his Ph.D., Greenspun does do a great job explaining databased backed websites. However he does little in getting Grandma to put up her first homepage; in short, I would recommend Philip and Alex’s Guide to Webpublishing to computer science students, but not to my unemployable friends with B.A.'s in the liberal arts.

Whenever people ask me about setting up a website, I am suddenly hit with a sense of social responsibility. I fear that giving people the tools they need to publish a website, without instructing them on how to build a website will merely contribute to the further decline of civil society with more animated GIFs and midi files playing in the background. And I absolutely do not want another ghastly collection of scrolling, flashing, 20 point text telling me about the latest photo from your sister's wedding. So for the love of god, be socially responsible: read this guide before you start writing HTML.