How do I set up my free web space?
When you sign up for a Powernet account you will receive 25Mb of free web space, which can be used to accommodate your own website.
Before you can use your web space, you need to register with Powernet that you intend to use it:
Stage 1 - Creating the Webspace
In the client area of our web site, click on free web space.
Type in your account name and password. If you have not previously done so, you will then have the option of activating your web space, giving you FTP access to Powernet's server - you can now upload your web site.
Stage2 - Upload to your web space
To upload your web, you must either use a third party package such as CuteFTP or WSFTP, or a command line FTP program such as the one supplied with Windows. Whichever FTP package you use, carry out the following steps:
Before you try to upload your web space, make sure you are connected to Powernet (ie you have used your Powernet account to dial-up).
Start your FTP program. You will be prompted for a host or site to connect to: type in users.powernet.co.uk Enter your login name: this will be web-nodename, where nodename will be the same as your normal login name Enter your password, which will be the same as your normal login and email password Once this is done, you will be free to transfer files to and from your website. The address of your homepage will be http://users.powernet.co.uk/nodename/ If you have any problems uploading your web space, contact our support desk on 01908-242103. While Powernet does not support the use of your free web space and website creation, we have supplied some questions and answers to help you get started. You can also use the Powernet newsgroups to seek assistance from others.
How do I get more than 25Mb of web space?
We consider 25Mb of web space more than adequate for most home users' webs. If you require more space, it will be charged at commercial rates. Please contact our sales team on 01908-605188 for a quote.
What are the advantages of having commercial web space over my free web?
If you purchase commercial web space, technical support is provided (although this does not include design or programming issues).
Included in the charge for your web space is a mapping service; Powernet will map any of your own domain names to your commercial web space.
We back up all commercial web space to our servers on a regular basis.
All commercial web space is hosted on fast servers and immediate technical support is provided on all server related issues.
Commercial web space is not limited to 25Mb, so if you require more space this can be accommodated.
Commercial web space includes support for CGI (on the UNIX servers) or ASP (on the Windows servers).
What do I need to start creating/designing my website?
A website consists of text and graphics within a framework. Before you start creating these, you will need to choose a HTML editor, such as FrontPage or Dream weaver, to work with, or you can download a freeware or shareware package from the Internet.
There are many freeware and shareware HTML editors available that will create HTML source for you. Visit our favourite download site, http://www.tucows.com/, to view the choices available - this site offers over 300 HTML software titles.
Alternatively, if you have basic programming knowledge, you will find HTML very simple and should be able to pick it up by obtaining The Bare Bones Guide to HTML and examining other people's source code.
How do I add graphics to my website?
All web browsers support the use of gifs and jpegs, which are types of image file. Most graphics packages such as Photoshop or MS Publisher will allow you to save your images in these formats.
Once you have created your images, it is simply a case of transferring these files to your web and referencing (linking) them from within your web pages. When referencing image files you should ensure that you reference (link) them relatively, rather than absolutely.
What is the difference between relative and absolute referencing?
It is usual to create your website on your own machine and then upload it to your web space. If this is the case any links or graphics that you have created within the site will be referenced absolutely - this means that the path of the file is specific to where the image is located on your machine:
eg <img src=///C:/myweb/graphics/hello.gif>,
If your graphics are referenced in this way, links to your graphics will not work when you upload the site to your web space, causing your site to contain broken links.
To avoid this situation, reference your graphics relatively, which will make your web fully portable. For example, if you include a graphic located in the same directory as your web page, then the path would look something like <img src=hello.gif> if it is in a directory called graphics,it would be <img src=graphics/hello.gif>.
Either way the file would not be linked absolutely to the C drive of your machine.
How do I use CGIs?
Sorry, CGI support is not available on free web space.
I can't seem to connect to the FTP server to upload my web!
Make sure you have created your web account. Until you do this you will have no ftp access to our web server. Your web password will always be the same as your login/email password. Also ensure that you are connecting to users.powernet.co.uk with a login of web-nodename (where nodename is your normal login name), and use your normal password.
I have uploaded my web, but instead of a homepage, I just get a list of files
The default page must be called index.html; this must be in lower case. Some computers allow only for 3 letter extensions so once your file is transferred, it will appear as index.htm; to fix this you will have to use FTP software to rename the file on our web server. Our web server is case sensitive, and the index page must be spelt in lower case, because INDEX.HTML and index.html are two different files.
None of my links or graphics work
If neither your links nor graphics work, this could be due to you referencing objects absolutely rather than relatively, or the fact that our web server is case sensitive and the files are being referenced with the wrong case.
My links work, but my graphics are broken
This may be down to the fact the graphics have been transferred in ASCII mode rather than binary mode. This can be corrected only by uploading the graphics again, ensuring the transfer takes place in binary mode. If this is not the problem, then check case sensitivity and that the file is being referenced relatively.
All the files I am adding to my web get uploaded as 0 bytes. What happened?
This happens when you have exceeded your quota (which is, by default, 25 megabytes). Even if you have exceeded your quota the files will still be uploaded to your web, but they will appear with a size of zero bytes. Your FTP package should inform you when your quota is exceeded.
Why are my files rejected when I try to upload them?
This may be because you have inserted a space in the filename, for example 'home page.html'. Please ensure that your filename is a continuous string of characters; this can include hyphens or underscores eg homepage.html , home-page.html or home_page.html.