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| If you have arrived at this web page obviously you have come to some conclusion about wanting a place for either your business or personal use on the Internet. By this time you have probably heard hundreds of industry buzzwords like domain name, dot com, e-commerce, development, etc…that you don't know "up" from "down". Not to worry, as a newcomer to the Internet, millions of people are in the same position. XVI is here to provide you with some tools and information to be used for your benefit. This page will help you to develop, maintain, and produce the results you want from your web site. |
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Now that you have decided that you want a website you have to decide what you want your website to accomplish for you. Do you want to sell a service or a product on it? (This is what is known as E-Commerce). Or do you just want an informational page describing your business, hobby, personal, etc..? Once you have decided this you can then pick out a domain name. This is the www name that you see on tv commercials and all over the internet and is also how people around the world will access your web site on the internet. Most business choose something like www.theirbusinessname.com. (If you don't feel comfortable with this process, XVI can do this for you and you can skip down to the next section)* |
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When you purchase your Domain Name they will ask you where you are going to host your website. You'll need to give them the following information: |
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 At this point the actual development starts, and you don't have to be a world renowned webmaster or graphic artist to develop your webpage. You do however need to decide how you want it to function, and more importantly how you want to lay out your page. Any executive in the advertising industry will tell you that visualization is one of the key factors in persuading someone. So you are going to need graphics for your web page. This can be accomplished by one of two ways. You can use clipart or non-copyrighted images from the internet, or you can find a scanner and digitize your images. Either way you decide you'll need a program to touch them up and make them internet ready. A great program we use and recommend is Paint Shop Pro by Jasc Software. Paint shop pro can be downloaded as an evaluation software then purchased when the trial version expires. There is additional information on Jasc's Web site to learn about how to use this software.
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 Now that you have a plan and all the images you are going to use it's time to bring the pieces of the puzzle together to create the web site. You'll need a program to generate the necessary code to make the page viewable to all the different Internet browsers. A good program that we use and recommend is Hotdog by Sausage Software. This is one of the most powerful yet easy to use software packages available. Another bonus is it comes as a trial software then after 30 days you can purchase it. You can check out Sausages' Web site for all the info you'll need to start coding your webpage.
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 Now is where needing a place to host your website comes in. If you have a business account with us or would like to have one call toll free: 1-888-422-4978 or local 219-696-4984 to speak with one of our representatives. Or check out our services page at services. After you get the necessary information and a response from us, we'll give you a username and password and an ftp site to log into. This information won't be of much use to you though until you download the 3rd and final piece of software to help you publish your web site. We use CuteFTP to accomplish this. Again it is a shareware program, try it out for 30 days and then you'll have to pay to register it. We like the program for its ease of use and functionality. You can find out more about it at CuteFTP's web site.
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Well that about wraps it up. You have collected images, code, and uploaded your new website via FTP, and now you are ready to view it on the web. Just open your web browser and in the address bar type in www.yourcompany.com and off you go. What? What's that you say? It doesn't look exactly the way you wanted? Now you begin the process of page modification and tweaking. It is sometimes time consuming, but you go through the same steps you did originally to modify it. Or if you get in over your head you can give one of our trained professionals a call and we'll give you an estimate on fixing it.** Creating and maintaining a website is not for everyone, but it can be a worthwhile pursuit if you have the extra time and a little knowledge of how to get around in this world we call cyberspace. But for those that don't you can always count on the professionals at XVI to get your site up, running, looking professional, and accomplishing what you want your website to do for you. I hope you have found this webpage informative and helpful. If you need any clarifications or want to talk about setting up a website feel free to give us a call toll free at: 1-888-422-4978 or local: 219-696-4984 or email: support@xvi.net to get started. |
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| *XVI charges $50 per year to register and setup a domain name, see our services page for more info. |
| **XVI WILL NOT PROVIDE technical assistance for the aforementioned software unless we have been compensated to do so. |
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