- You must be a SONET member with a Web page on members.sonetcom.com (this server) to get your page listed. SONET Communications offers 10 MB of free personal
Web/FTP space to each SONET member, which may be used for any purpose, including business, so long as its contents
abide by the terms and conditions of SONET's Membership Agreement.
By default, we don't activate your Web space until you request it. To sign up for your space, email admin@sonetcom.com with your first name, last name, and user name. You will be sent an email message confirming
your space activation, at which time you may begin uploading.
- You will need an FTP program to transfer files to and from your Web space.
Many shareware/freeware FTP clients are available on SONET's FileDudes Mirror. Some popular ones are:
For a start, you can use the built-in "publish" feature found in some
HTML editors such as Microsoft FrontPage Express and CoffeeCup HTML Express. However, most FTP
programs integrated with HTML design software will only upload documents. You'll need an FTP client to rename
or remove any files from your Web site.
- After you've installed your FTP program, you'll need to enter the following information
to log into your Web space:
* FTP Host Name: members.sonetcom.com
* FTP User Name: The same user name you use for
your SONET login/email
* FTP Password: The same password you use for your
SONET login/email
* Directory Path: /
- After uploading your files, your home page's Web address will be:
http://members.sonetcom.com/yourusername
- Your home page's file name must be index.htm or default.htm
- Microsoft FrontPage extensions are not available on this Web server.
- While SONET Communications does not provide technical support for building Web
pages, we have provided the following links as resources for new and experienced authors alike:
SITES WE RECOMMEND FOR WEB BUILDERS
Builder.com's
Spotlight! Web building for beginners Everything
you need to know to create your first Web site, from HTML to graphics and design, hosted on one of CNET's megasites.
HotWired's
Webmonkey HTML Collection Start here for
all you need to know to begin building your homepage. It's quick and easy. HotWired's interactive tutorial lets
you read about or do some hands-on exploration of all the basic HTML tags.
Project
Cool's Developer Zone Packed with reference
materials....so cool it's HOT!
Help-Site.com's
Writing HTML A thorough collection of HTML
documentation...not surprising considering this entire site is a virtual cornucopia of computing and Internet knowledge.
Web Pages
That Suck.com Learn
good design by looking at bad design! What not to do when creating your first Web site. Hilariously funny
and entertaining, too.
Web Developer's Virtual
Library The original encyclopedia of Web
technology, The WDVL is a comprehensive, standards-oriented content site, for webmasters, web designers, and Internet
developers.
Inside Dynamic
HTML A resource site for the DHTML community.
Dynamic HTML Zone Macromedia's DHTML site. Since Macromedia Dreamweaver
is the current market leader in DHTML authoring tools, it's only natural that they would have a great DHTML developers'
site.
Macromedia
Shockzone Macromedia's showcase site for
its Shockwave & Flash technology. Shockwave
is the Web standard for powerful multimedia playback. It lets you view interactive Web content like games, business
presentations, entertainment, and advertisements from your Web browser.
SOFTWARE WE RECOMMEND FOR WEB BUILDERS
HTML Editors
CoffeeCup
HTML Express is possibly the easiest web page creation utility on the
Net. This extremely simple web page program walks you through each and every step of the creation of your web page.
This program is great for beginners who want to get their first web page up and running fast, but complex enough
for professionals who need a fast jump-start on a project.
CoffeeCup
HTML Editor++ is a full-featured HTML editor. It includes Expresso FTP
for uploading and downloading (in the registered version only), an image gallery (with quick-linking images), highlighted
tags, style sheet help, automatic image sizing, a line reader, and tips. This program also comes with backgrounds,
animated GIFs, JavaScripts (10 unregistered, 40 registered), and VBScripts with ActiveX functionality (5 unregistered,
10 registered). You can work on and test multiple pages at once. A color wizard eliminates the need to hunt for
RGB codes. Other features include: an internal browser for testing and surfing, an image previewing utility, online
help, support for HTML server extensions, a form designer, WebTV tag support, and special character insertion.
New in this version are the ability to right-click to open a file in the left pane, new list importation, an ActiveX
control wizard, and a hidden comment wizard.
Allaire HomeSite
4.0 is an intuitive editor for creating and editing HTML. This product
offers accessible features and convenient and useful editing tools. You can use tabs to manage and view files,
projects, text snippets, reference material, and server connections. New to this version is a design tab, that
lets you visually start a project, excellent for laying out complicated tables. The best part of HomeSite has always
been it's customization; the new version takes that even further. Almost everything about HomeSite 4.0 is customizable.
Macromedia Dreamweaver
2 is an advanced HTML editor that's packed
with features. It features a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) interface that also lets you view the source
code. Key features include HTML inspector which lets you view the code as you create your site visually. It will
clean up other code generated by other editors
if you so desire and integrate nicely with HomeSite. It features advanced table
editing, advanced color picker, pre-coded objects such as Flash movies, rollover effects as well as 3rd party objects
from Macromedia, HP, Real Networks and Cold Fusion. It also handles CSS (cascading style sheets) and a deluxe site
management tool to maintain your site.
Web Graphics
Paint Shop Pro
5 is the latest version of this popular easy-to-use painting and image
manipulation program. New features include complete layers support for blend mode control, grouping, visibility,
transparency locking and variable opacity. Realistic Picture Tube brushes allow users to easily add a variety of
images to their work. CMYK color separations can now be processed to accurately reproduce your images on paper.
A new multiple-level undo history lets you back up to any point in your image’s creation. Pressure-sensitive tablet
support is also included.
Crystal 3D IMPACT!
Pro lets Web developers and others add the impact of high-quality 3D
pictures, titles, objects, buttons, and logos to Web pages, banner ads, videos, and presentations. Visual wizards
walk users through five galleries of lighting, text entry, bevels, materials, and motions. Each gallery offers
more than 100 customizable choices. Users can also automatically import existing logos, photos, and artwork as
2D objects, then animate them in 3D with a single click. Create cool effects like soft-edged shadows, object-to-object
reflections, ray-traced refraction, bumpy surfaces, and animated textures and backgrounds. 3D IMPACT! Pro supports
JPEG, PNG, and all varieties of GIF (including transparent GIFs with antialiasing). It makes minimizing download
times a snap. This new version has an improved polygon-cutting tool and a more robust rendering method and bevel
engine.
CorelXARA 2.0 is an object-oriented illustration tool capable of producing high-quality images. Image
creation tools include the capacity to preview bitmaps side by side at different settings, assign Web address and
target frame information to objects, produce image maps and the corresponding HTML code, and choose the target
page's background color or tile for optimal anti-aliasing. The program also supports Web-safe colors, animated
GIF creation, and graduated fills and blends. What makes this program unique, however, is its use of vector graphics
in creating object-based editable CorelXARA 2.0 Web files (WEB) for use with the CorelXARA 2.0 plug in for Internet
Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Not only are these images clear and compact, but they are also scalable to 2,500
percent, leaving room for an incredible degree of detail. New with version 2.0 is support for Adobe Photoshop compatible
plug-in filters, import/export of CMX and PNG files, configuration of the fractal Plasma fill to one of multiple
textures, downloading of images from the Internet, and the ability to set browser preferences.
Macromedia Fireworks
2 sports a complete suite of text, design, illustration, image editing,
URL, JavaScript, and animation tools can create everything for your Web site, without the annoyance of jumping
from application to application. The program is intended for Web designers who work primarily with images; it provides
loads of necessary tools, including complete compression control, visual export preview, color palettes, and JavaScript
rollovers. Fireworks provides an easy way to optimize and preview final output in every popular format. For example,
you can examine GIFs and JPEGs side by side in the same window, comparing size and appearance, without ever leaving
Fireworks. Version 2.0 features new and improved JavaScript behaviors, graphic and text styles that can be
shared, better JPEG compression, and an Export to Size command that automatically creates the highest quality graphics
for a user-specified file size.
BOOKS WE RECOMMEND FOR WEB BUILDERS
HTML
Goodies, by Joe Burns This
book takes the same approach that has made the Goodies Web site so popular: fun, humor, and great Web examples.
HTML
4 for the World Wide Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, by Elizabeth Castro Perfect for beginners, this best-selling book presumes no prior knowledge of HTML
or even the Internet.
Teach
Yourself Web Publishing With HTML 4 in a Week, by Laura Lemay A revised and updated edition of one of the best introductory HTML tutorials on the
market, this "Teach Yourself" book covers the new HTML "Cougar" specification, plus the Netscape
Communicator and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 environments, as well as style sheets, Dynamic HTML, and XML. A
support Web site contains all the source code for the book's examples.
The
Non-Designer's Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice,
by Robin Williams This is a must-read for non-artsy builders
trying to make their first sites look good.
Creative
HTML Design, by Lynda Weinman
This is a hands-on, project-based book that will start you down the path of dynamic Web page design.
Designing
Web Graphics.3, by Lynda Weinman
The esteemed Weinman tells you everything you need to know about preparing graphics for the Web.
Web
Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design, by Vincent
Flanders and Michael Willis Learn good web design by looking at bad
web design. Web Pages That Suck is the much needed, humorous and informative book by the Web's leading critics,
Vincent Flanders and Michael Willis. They teach Web designers what NOT to do, by showcasing the Good, the Bad and
the Ugly already on the web. Web Pages That Suck is written by the creators of the hugely popular Web site of the same name.
FREE TOOLS WE RECOMMEND FOR WEB BUILDERS
Banner Exchanges & Webrings
LinkExchange Now part of the Microsoft Network, LinkExchange is the largest
and most popular banner exchange service.
CashPile Everyone's heard about the explosive growth of revenue-sharing
Web retailers like Amazon.com and CDnow, who pay you commissions for purchases made as a result of referrals from
your site. What you may not know is that hundreds of smaller, special niche companies are jumping on the
revenue-sharing bandwagon. CashPile lists and rates a wide range of revenue-sharing opportunities for you.
WebRing Acquired by GeoCities in 1998, WebRing is the largest and first service of its kind on the Internet. In each of its tens
of thousands of rings, member web sites have banded together to form their sites into linked circles, with each
ring being separate and distinct. This unique structure allows the creation and evolution of tens of thousands
of different "web communities." Each ring was started and is maintained by an individual website owner.
Through navigation links found most often at the bottom of member pages, visitors can travel all or any of the
sites in a ring. They can move through a ring in either direction, going to the next or previous site, or
listing the next five sites in the ring. They can jump to a random site in the ring, or survey all the sites that
make up the ring.
Counters & Trackers
Beseen's Hit Counter Easily add a hit counter to your Web page to track how many visitors you receive with
simple cut-and-paste HTML code. Beseen has many other nifty free tools for your Web page on their site as
well, like guestbooks and threaded discussion boards.
Extreme Tracking A well-known Dutch free stats service for your Web page.
FastCounter
LinkExchange's popular free counter service, it has the advantage of using
a small, discreet image you can place in the bottom corner of your page.
HitBOX
This is the only counter/tracker you'll ever need! Simply the most thorough free stats available today on
the Net. If you need to present site statistics to advertisers and you can't afford or don't have access
to a commercial log analyzer, this comes darn close.
Fonts
MediaBuilder With over a thousand TrueType Fonts, this site is sure to have the typeface you need.
Also has a large collection of public domain image files.
Web FX Mall
Super multimedia site....still under construction but very nicely done with an extensive fonts library.
Acid Fonts A large collection of Freeware and Shareware fonts for your enjoyment.
Forms
Freedback.com Allows your site's visitors to submit information via Web-based forms without any knowledge
of CGI scripting on your part!
Graphics
A-1 Icon Archive Over 300,000 free website graphics such as icons, backgrounds, balls, clip art, pictures,
as well as html helpers, html editors, and more for you to download.
Animation Factory Over 11,000 animated imaged
for your site! You'll probably never find a more comprehensive library of animated GIFs.
Bryan Livingston's CoolText.com Free online text graphics generator...it really is cool!
GIFCruncher Free GIF optimization service to make your page load faster!
Guestbooks, Chat & Discussion Forums
Beseen
Best known for free counters, Beseen has also chat, guestbooks and Web-based discussion boards.
Delphi Forums
One of the largest discussion communities on the Web.
Dreambook
The #2 free guestbook on the Web :)
GuestWorld Now owned by Tripod-Lycos, GuestWorld is the most popular free guestbook on the Web.
ICQ Tools Catalog ICQ power tools for webmasters and site developers.
Java & JavaScript
The Java Boutique A Mecklermedia site where you can get all kinds of free Java Applets here for your
Web page...just don't overdo it! Too much Java will make your page load like molasses in January.
Applet FX Freeware A free sampling of Applets by Demicron, a top-notch Java developer in Sweden.
7am News
This popular site features a cool free Java news ticker and a new free news wire service. One neat use of
the ticker is to tell viewers about local news on your site instead of or in addition to pulling a news feed from
the Net--the Applet will also load faster if you do this..
WebTicker Another popular Java news wire service.
EarthWeb's
JARS.com
and Gamelan Two of the most popular Java resource
sites on the Web.
The JavaScript Source Mecklermedia's Cut & Paste JavaScript library.
JavaScripts.com Another excellent EarthWeb site for JavaScript.
Music & Sound
Laura's MIDI Heaven MIDI files are very popular on Web pages these days, especially personal Web pages.
Small in size and fun to listen to on a good sound card, use them with caution...our personal opinion is that unless
a site is about music, they tend to be distracting. Luckily, Laura has a large collection of popular songs
in MIDI format here, so you shouldn't have to go much further to find what you're looking for.
Joerock & Explorer's Dance Midi House This site of custom midi mixes is maintained by some of SONET's most artistically
talented Web hosting customers. Joerock & Explorer specialize in dance/R&B midis, so check out their
songs on a 64- or 128-bit sound card and get ready for an Internet house party!
SoundAmerica Very large WAV files site.
Web Promotion & URL Submission
1 2 3 Add It! Submit your site to 6 popular search engines for free via a Web based form.
Fast & easy.
AddMe
Free submission to 34 popular search engines.
HyperHits
Freeware Even
while you sleep, With HyperHits Freeware 1.1.1, you can submit your website(s) to 50+ directories for free and
GET HITS! HyperHits Freeware is cutting-edge promotion software designed, developed, and distributed by WebMaster
Tools. This is a simple no frills way to submit and promote your site.
SubmitWolf Pro A professional quality web page promotion robot. It has a database of over 2000 search
engines, and has 1200 fully automated submission scripts. Search Engine Ranking allows you to track your success.
An extensive submission project history is also kept. This shareware version can only submit to 5 engines.
WebSpinner Web submission software that automatically submits your URL to over 400 Search Engines
& Biz.Directory. Unlimited submission and also performs ranking analysis.
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