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House Hunting Introduction Homepage Creation Tips Hosting Promotion Related Links 1. Tripod 2. Geocities 3. Bayside

Now that you've spent quite some time and effort creating an aesthetic webpage, it's time to build your home in cyberspace. To make your pages accessible to everyone with an Internet connection, you need to put them on a web server. A web server is a computer that will store your homepage, connect to other computers on the Internet, and show your homepage to those who try to access it. Universities abroad are very generous with their computers, and most students, within a few days of being on the Internet create their home pages - with snaps of themselves, their college, and even their pets! For the rest of us who are not so lucky, there are internet servers that allow you to put up your home page for a price, while there are a few that offer their services for free. These free webspace providers can afford to give away free space by earning advertising revenue based on their user profile. To that end, they require you to fill in a few details about yourself, and stick to certain rules that they have - like not using the site for commercial purposes, and not putting up vulgar material on your home page. In return, they offer you a fixed amount of megabytes (one megabyte can store an average of 75 pages) on their computers which you could use to put up your home page. Tripod is one such site, that currently offers users 5 Mb of space. Once you register and become a member, you have a password that you use to create your pages, and later on, modify them.

Geocities is another site that offers you 6 Mb of webspace for your homepage. This site is very unique in that it is almost like choosing a home. Once you register as a member, you are taken on a tour of different cities (localities) where you'd like to stay. I chose the city of love, romance, and passion - Paris. Once in the city of your choice, from hundreds of blocks present you have to hunt around till you get a vacant block you like, and occupy it. I chose block 2889. So my home page address here is (http://www.geocities.com/Paris/2889).

If you'd rather not have your homepage to be associated with the "free" label, try looking out for webpage providers who charge a reasonable fee for hosting your webpages. Indian companies charge a lot, and charge a recurring fee. When I outgrew Tripod and Geocities, I shifted my home in cyberspace to Bayside (http://www.bayside.net), which charges a flat rate for 10 Mb of space for lifetime. A month before I bought my space, the rate was just US$15, but it zoomed up to US$25. The rate at the time of going to press is US$40.

So take your time, visit these sites, and choose your homepage carefully. Remember - you'll probably be staying there for the rest of your life on the Web!!

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