When you have decided on a name, you must register it with a company which specialises in registering web site names. Once you have registered the name, nobody else can use it as long as you pay a small annual renewal fee. It's the name you will use on the web, but that's all it is, just a name that can be used, but without any web site or even a single web page.

2. finding a provider

this is a company, somewhere in the world, which has a large number of very big hard disks that run 24 hours a day, and on which the design and data of your web site is kept. When anyone with a computer wants to look at your web site, they type in the name (the one you registered) and if all goes well and you have done all the work your nice design is displayed on their screen.

The provider allocates space for your web site design, the size of which depends on how much you are prepared to pay. A simple web site with two or three pages and two or three photographs needs perhaps 2 GB, whereas if you have 80 pages and 300 photographs you might need 20 GB. You also usually get some space for your personal e-mail addresses, so that, once you have registered your web page, you can have an e-mail address such as my_name@my_own_website.xxx which looks pretty cool

Again, you must pay an annual amount to keep the space on the hard disks of the provider, but you can, if not happy with the service, change provider and still keep your registered name.

Although most providers will also register your chosen (and available) name, it is a good idea always to register the name with one company and use another company to act as a server.

3. designing the web site pages

that's what the rest of this book is about, so let's leave it for the moment

4. uploading the web pages to the site and checking that all works properly

uploading the web site design to the hard disk of the provider is a sub-routine built into the program. It usually is a little complicated to set up in the first place, since different providers have different names for what is essentially the same thing, but once you have typed in correctly

the host, the user name and the password, your computer stores all this abracadabra and from then on uploading is virtually automatic.

Once it is uploaded, you must actually have a look at what comes on to the screen when using different web access programs (Outlook, Firefox, Chrome or whatever) and on different screens (desktop, laptop, netbook). You may have to do a little re-designing in order to acommodate different programs and different screens. What looks good on one screen looks messy on another.

These are the main four steps. Finding a good name is something you can do yourself by using the internet, but getting it registered and finding a provider means finding reliable companies who provide a good and efficient service.

My personal experience has been extremely varied. Prices vary by enormous amounts, and are not a reliable guide to quality. Since most companies provide little more than a web address and an e-mail service, it's difficult to protest at bad service. I have also had the experience of first using a nice little company providing excellent service which was swallowed by a huge shark who provided an extremely indifferent service. Perhaps the best way is to simply find people who have used the same provider for a number of years and ask for the name. The only difficulty will be that most people don't actually know the name of their provider - they leave this to the people who have written the web site. Who will, of course, try to sell you their services rather than tell you the name of the provider.

OK, that's the introduction over, and from now on you're going to get your teeth in the DFM2HTML program. Good luck.