Microsoft FrontPage
By Sharon Wichman
President, New PCUG
Dec 2002
Microsoft Frontpage is the must have program when starting your own website, unless your Internet Service Provider uses it’s own website creator program, like AOL does.
The installation of Frontpage went smooth, no problems what so ever. Just pop the cd into the drive and it starts automatically. Choose to do a regular installation and it will install itself and create a folder under “My Documents” called “My Webs” where it will store any webs you create. It also adds the essential folders, like _Private and Images.
The computer requirements for Frontpage is a Pentium 133 or higher, but a Pentium III is recommended, you need to be running Windows 98 or 98 2nd addition, Windows Millennium, or Windows NT with Service pack 6. The amount of ram for Windows 98 should be 24 mg plus an additional 8 for Frontpage. Ram for Windows ME and NT should be 32 plus the 8 for Frontpage and Windows 2000 professional should be 64 (128 recommended) plus an additional 8 for Frontpage. Hard Drive space varies also, 165 mb available hard drive space with 115 mb more were the operating system is installed and for Windows 98 an additional 50 mb for system files updates.
This program is so easy to use. If you know how to use Microsoft’s office programs then you know how to use Frontpage. It has several templates to choose from. Templates are ready made websites that you can modify to your own needs. They are Customer Support Webs, Project or Personal Webs and One Page or Empty Webs. There is also a Wizard to help you with creating more complex sites. The Corporate Wiz will help you create websites for a company. The Discussion Wiz helps create a website with a message board and the Import Wiz creates a new website based on existing web files on your computer. You just enter your own data into them.
The cost of Frontpage 2002 differs depending on where you buy it. You can buy it new for $169.00 or $89.95 for the upgrade or buy it from Pre-Played, if they have it in stock, for less then a new one. Most Internet Service Providers offer you space for your website along with there service. 10 megs is plenty for most websites but if you get into more complex ones you may need more space. Also make sure your provider uses the Frontpage Extensions or there are some features of Frontpage that won’t work, like the Forms or the counter. You can still use Frontpage without the Extensions.
After you have your website created, call your Internet Service Provider, ask them for the address where to upload your website and they will ask you for a username and password. The username you choose should corresponds to what your website will be called so make sure you use a username that goes with what you want it to be called. An example is the user name newpcug. Then choose your password.
After you have that all set and your website designed you can then publish your site to the web. Frontpage makes it easy, but there are some rules you have to follow when building a website. The rules apply to all websites in general, not to Frontpage alone, like naming your files and folders with a hyphen between each word if there is more than one word in a file or folder name or naming your home page Index.html. But you’ll learn more about that as you get into it more. When you are ready, just click on publish in the top menu, it will ask you your user name and password and will then start uploading all your files to the web.
The last thing I wanted to mentions is the book called Step By Step, Microsoft Frontpage 2000 or the 2002 version. It’s a study guide kit that Microsoft puts out. It comes with a CD that has your step by step lessons on it and also a 45 day timed version of Frontpage. This book was my major source in learning Frontpage when I took over the PCUG’s website. Before that I had never even looked at the program that came with my Office 2000. I didn’t even know what the program was for. So if you want to start learning Frontpage, this is the book to get.