Introduction

The Webmaster's Bureau is a step-by-step course in website creation. It's designed to help you get your first website up and running as quickly and cheaply as possible, while teaching you everything you need to know to be a competent, independent webmaster.

The course is aimed at anyone who'd like to learn, and doesn't presuppose any previous knowledge of programming. It does require, however, that the reader understands how to use computers and the Internet, and is prepared to spend some time working through the examples and understanding the concepts involved...

The course attempts to explain everything in plain English, while also giving you the correct technical terminology. Each module is designed to be concise, complete and correct. Creating websites is well within the abilities of most people, and the best way to learn is to do!...

The Webmaster's Bureau Website Creation Course isn't just a book to read - there are 5 distinct activities involved:

• Read And Digest The Course Text.
  You'll have to read and understand quite a few new concepts that will explain how the web actually works, how databases work, what's involved in programming etc. You should take as much time as you need to understand these basics as they are the foundation upon which your programming skills are built!
  
  
• Download And Install Software.
  You'll have to get all the tools you need from the Internet and install them on your PC. These are the tools that'll allow you to create and manage your website with the maximum efficiency!
  
  
• Design & Content Creation
  Creating text and graphics for your web pages and creating the web pages themselves. Modifying any scripts you need.
  
  
• Management & Other Tasks.
  You'll have to set up the services you need, create directory structures, create databases, and a few other things.
  
  
• Research.
  You may need to find more information on the things that are interesting or relevant to your application. The course contains lots of links to selected offsite resources, which you may like to follow.

For each of the different tools and services you'll need, there's usually a recommended choice, plus a few other options I think are better than most. The course shows you exactly where to find everything you need. For detailed instructions on how to install or use any particular tool or service you should always refer to the manufacturer's documentation.

You'll have to install and learn how to use the tools etc. you choose. The course materials will explain the purpose of each tool and any particular quirks or features that are considered important.

The example web pages and scripts included in later lessons show you all you need to know of the languages used (HTML, Perl, PHP). The examples are extremely well commented, and if you read and digest them, you'll soon understand how things work. You can use the examples to provide you with most of the code for any scripts you want to create yourself. There's no restriction on using the examples in any way you like.

Where possible, free services and software are used. Contrary to common opinion, software that's completely free is often much better than the commercially available products. Most open source software is absolutely superb. Another misconception is that commercial software is better 'supported' than freeware, again this may not always be true... Some commercial products require you purchase a separate support contract, or use a premium rate telephone number. Most freeware is supported - for free - by a huge community of enthusiasts.

Sometimes though, you do have to spend some money to save yourself time and stress! In these few cases, my recommendations are not made lightly - they are all excellent products, and we've looked hard! Please note, web-bureau.com is not affiliated with any of the recommended products.

The course attempts to strike a balance between getting your website up and running as soon as possible, and giving you a reasonable amount of work to do each month.

Each lesson is designed to take no more than ten hours to complete, but this figure is difficult to estimate. This course will take more or less time for each individual, depending on:

• a) How much experience you have of computers and the Internet, and...
• b) How much of the content of your website already exists.

If you already know quite a lot, and have most of your content, but need to put the final pieces together it should take less than ten hours per month. If you have less experience, then there's some additional reading that you'll have to do in order to understand everything you're doing. That'll take more time, but don't rush it!

Ensure you understand what you've done in each module fully before you move on to the next.

In the course text, the following conventions are used:

• The text of the book, instructions, advice etc. looks like this.
  
  
• Keywords and computing terms are shown in bold.
  
  
• Any computer input, source code, Unix commands looks like this.
  
  
• Tasks to be performed are summarised in this bold font.
  
  

• INFO: Background information and tips appear in an INFO box like this.