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Hot for HTML, jivin' on Java
Answers to Common Questions and Problems
Take a look at this page if you're having trouble applying for your
free Personal Home Page, or if you have questions about
customizing and creating your Personal Home Page.
I Completed the Application Form for a Home Page, But Did
Not Get My Password. What Do I Do?
- You should get an E-Mail with your password within 2 or 3 hours
of the time you complete your application for a Personal Home Page.
If you did not get this E-Mail, then it is most likely that you
mis-typed your E-Mail address when you were filling out the
application. If you did not put in the correct E-Mail address
you will not get the confirmation E-Mail with your GeoCities
password.
The first thing to do is to check the address that you signed up for and see if your member name is still assigned to it. (Go to the Neighborhood Directory and find your community and
numbered address from the address listings.) If your member name is still next to your address, then use our
Password Utility to request your password. If your member name is not listed, then you need to reapply for residency. If no one has taken your original address, then you may apply for
it again. Be sure and enter your correct E-Mail address this time!
OK, I Got My Password, Now What Do I Do?
- You are now ready to create your Personal Home Page. You can
do this two ways:
1) Use our Home Page Editor. This
is a user friendly utility that lets you create a great looking page
in minutes. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. You can
access the Home Page Editor from the main Homestead menu.
2) You can create your own pages, custom GIFs, JPGs and other
files and send them to our server.
To learn how to do this, read carefully
the "homeftp.html, FTP procedures" that are
linked from the main Homestead menu.
Do I Have To Create My Page Right Away, Or Can I Wait
Awhile Before I Move In?
- In order to keep the neighborhoods a lively and enjoyable place,
we would like you to move in within a week after you have received
your password and confirmation E-Mail. Your neighbors would prefer to
live next door to someone who has moved in rather than a vacant lot!
You are encouraged to change and update your page as often as you
like, but we ask that you at least create a "I'm Coming Soon" type
page within the first week. If there is no activity within a week after
we send you your password and confirmation E-Mail, then we may open
up the space to let someone else move in.
How Come I Can't See My Page When I Hit the 'Create / View'
Button?
- If you are creating your page with the handy Home Page Editor and
you keep seeing the screen that says 'member has not moved in yet -
please check back later' it is because your browser (i.e. Netscape
Mosaic, etc.) is storing the old page in its memory. Your new page
is actually there, it's just that your browser keeps displaying
the old page. Try adjusting the Options / Preferences settings so
that your browser will reload the new page from the host. You may
have to start and stop your browser for any changes to take affect.
Hitting the 'Reload' or the 'Reload From Host' key
usually works as well.
How Big Can My Page Be, and How Many Images Can I Have?
- We would prefer if the total file size of your page and all
your images was 1 megabyte or less.
How Can I Change my E-mail Address in my GeoCities Account?
- If you get a new E-mail address and would like to update your account, please use our
new Personal Profile Editor.
How Do I Reference Links Within GeoCities?
- To add a link to your page to another document within your directory, you only need
to use the filename itself. For example, if your index.html file has a link to
a second page within your directory, you would link it as follows:
<a href="secondpage.html">
You don't need the begining (http://www.geocities.com/) part at all.
Also, if you'd like to link your page to another homesteader's page, the same rule
applies. For example, if you want to link to Colosseum1000, you would write it as follows:
<a href="/Colosseum/1000/">
Please be sure to follow this rule when you design your homepage.
How Can I Move To a Different Neighborhood?
- If you would like to move to a different neighborhood or address, you may
use our Move Utility
to do
so. Make sure the address you want to move to is vacant.
Can I Have More Than One Page? Do You Support JPEG, Sound
and Video Files?
- Support for multiple pages as well as additional file types
is now available. See the "homeftp.html#types, FTP
procedures" for additional information.
How Do I Put a Form on My Page?
- GeoCities now has a script that allows you to use forms on your page, and
get the results sent to you via e-mail. This method will give you formatted messages that
are easy to read, unlike the general "mailto:" command you may have used in the past.
There are several ways you can use this script, with an infinite number of forms that
you can use. (For help with setting up forms, please visit the
NCSA Site .) For example, you may want to include a survey on your page that
your visitors can fill out and send to you. We have developed a
sample survey that you can use to
get started.
You may wish to ask visitors for their input on your page design or content. We have
also developed a sample feedback form
that may help you.
To use this script, simply define your form with the following text:
<form method=post action="/cgi-bin/homestead/mail.pl?member_name">
where "member_name" is your GeoCities member name. You can then develop any form
that you'd like to use, and get the results sent to your mailbox.
Do You Have Any Other Scripts That We Can Use?
- We have two other scripts for use on your Personal Home Page -
image map support and a counter,
Imagemap Instructions
To use the image map, you have to FTP two files - the image itself,
and the map file. See the "homeftp.html", FTP Procedures"
page for information about how to send in your files
Within your HTML, you refer to your image map file as follows:
<A HREF="/cgi-bin/imagemap/Hollywood/1100/image.map">
<IMG SRC="image.gif" ISMAP></A>.
Substitute your own neighborhood and address for Hollywood/1100,
and substitute your own image name and map name for image.gif and
image.map.
For more information on imagemaps, see
NCSA's
imagemap tutorial.
There is a new type of imagemap supported by most browsers, called a Client-Side Image Map.
These imagemaps do not require CGI scripts and are easy to set up. Check out Spyglass's tutorial for some more information on client-side image maps.
Counter Instructions
To use the counter, you need to do two things. First, you
need to initialize the counter by opening the following URL:
http://www.geocities.com/cgi-bin/counter/member.password
You can do this by typing the URL into the Location or URL
field of your browser, or by using the Open Location or Open URL
function of the browser. Be sure to enter your own member name and
password when initializing the counter. If you are successful in
doing this, a GIF containing the numeral 1 will appear.
Otherwise, you will get a 'Server Error' message.
Next, you need to add a reference to the counter in your page, like this:
<IMG SRC="/cgi-bin/counter/member">.
Be sure to use your own member name in the IMG SRC reference. That's it,
your counter should work. If it doesn't work, the counter was probably
not initialized correctly, please try again.
OK, Who Are You Guys? Is This Really Free? Why Are You Doing
This? Can I Put Anything I Want On My Page?
- What a lot of questions! Well you asked for it, so here we go:
Our philosphy has always been that locations on the Internet become
easier to relate to when they are rich with content and closely
identified with an actual idea or location. In support of this belief
and in keeping with the culture of the Internet, we've developed a
free Personal Home Page program.
We believe that everybody has a right to their own Personal Home Page
in cyberspace. We've developed two unique
Personal Home Page Editors for use in creating your own Personal Home Page. We've
created residential neighborhoods behind
each of our Geographic Home Pages to accommodate thousands of Personal
Home Pages. We've committed sufficient disk space and bandwidth to support
hundreds of neighborhoods, and we are looking for individuals who are ready to
sign-up and create their own Personal Home Page.
Our homesteading initiative is just the first step in building World
Wide Web based communities that are destined to become a vital part
of the Net. Please send us an E-Mail if you're
interested in learning more about helping build the societies of the
New Frontier.
The free Personal Home Page program is
designed to provide individuals a way to create their own home on the World Wide Web. This
program is supported in part by advertising and sponsorship revenue
received from our customers who have established commercial web sites. If you are
interested in advertising within one of our GeoCities, or if you would
like to set up a web site to promote your business or sell products,
please let us know. We'll be
happy to talk to you about it.
GeoCities is not responsible for the content of any Personal Home Page,
and reserves
the right to remove any page from the system.
In particular, we prohibit pages that promote
harm or injury against any group or individual. We also strongly
discourage and reserve the right to prohibit the use of a page that
is solely intended for commercial purposes.
The purpose of the free Personal Home Page program is to give
people the ability to create a home on the World Wide Web that
reflects their interests, hobbies and background. If you want
to promote your consulting service as well, that's generally fine
if your page is also about other things.
The terms of this offer are subject to
change at any time without notice. This free offer does not apply to
connect time or other charges incurred by the user from their service
provider while accessing GeoCities or creating a Personal Home Page.
So, Bottom Line, Are You Doing This As A Marketing Thing Or
Are You Building Societies of the New Frontier?
- We really are building Societies of the New Frontier.
- Famous Last Words!! . . . . webmaster, ewebtribe.com
Back to GeoCities Utilities Page.
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