OK, BEAUTIFUL. Here's how it's done.
It's bullshit to pay money for this stuff. The most expensive thing about creating
a web page is the amount of time you'll spend (like everyone else) dealing with the
technology. Don't let it discourage you though... patience is a virtue.
There are only two major ingredients to making an e-zine for free.
1. a computer with internet access.
2. something to say.
Number two is the hard part for most people, but not you... you're one clever cheetah!
Now let's get down to some details...
1. a computer with internet access.
"But I don't have access to a computer." is NEVER an excuse. You can't swing a fucking
mouse in this town without hitting an HTML pissant or WEB DESIGNER. You live in the BAY
AREA... you KNOW somebody with a computer and a modem. If you don't have one at work,
school or in your home... there's about 40 computer labs on campuses within seven miles
of downtown with easily bribed lab attendants. Everyone wants to help someone with a
vision. Just ask somebody and explain what you want to do. "Yo cool, my name is Joe
Nice-person and I have this terrific idea for an e-zine called PISSY MONKEYS ON CRACKROCK!
If you'll let me use that computer over there for an hour or so, I'll give you mad props
on the site... whaddya say?" Even your mama would buckle for that.
To create an e-zine, you need a TEXT EDITOR (bbedit for mac and notepad for PCs).
You need an FTP PROGRAM (fetch for mac and
ws_ftp for PCs). This software can be
downloaded for free from the internet. Now a breakdown might be in order.
a. TEXT EDITOR - for writing the HTML
b. FTP PROGRAM - for moving your files from your computer to the computer that will
serve your pages to the internet
Geocities and
Tripod are two big "free webpage hosting"
companies (with built-in editors so you won't need software) and there are many affinity servers. Hell, there's even a
free pages server for christians... maybe you could get in on that! All the major search
engines have entire categories that list the most up-to-date free servers around. Find
one that you feel is appropriate for your content and get to work! Or better yet, find
a friend with know-how and a server who will happily spend a little bit of time setting
you up for a pat on the back. From concept to e-zine, this process can literally happen
in about an hour so you really have no excuse now. If you've read this far and you're
still interested, you better get to work then register your site in the
WEBZINE98 ZINE DIRECTORY.
2. something to say.
You live an interesting beautiful life, you loving shining happy star! Tell a story or
thousand from your experience here on planet earth. People exist in this world who
really need to hear your perspective. And the internet is an incredibly powerful and
important anti-hierarchical medium that doesn't belong to people with money and computer
science degrees. YOUR VOICE IS THE DEFINITION OF GOOD SO SAY SOMETHING!
THE SECRET TRICK
Getting text onto a webpage is as simple as typing words. Formatting that text is a
little different though. So you learn some really simple tags, like <b>bold</b>
and <i>italic</i>. HTML is easy, especially after you learn the most fundamental
trick on the web: VIEW SOURCE. This shows you how other web pages are made. So if
you see something interesting on a page, view its source, copy it, then plug in
your own text. C'mon... it's noooo big deal, it's leeeegal, and evvvvveryone's doing it!
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