KISS HTML
You CAN write HTML code from scratch

Setting up your computer
To handle and store web site development

A little preparation will prove immensely helpful in the future. There is an easy way to develop and protect your efforts. To ignore these steps is an invitation to disaster.
Step 1-
Reserve space on your computer to store and develop your website. Using Windows Explorer (not MSIE), create a new folder/directory named for your website (ex. our tutorial is for Cyberperson, so we can make a folder/directory called "Cyberperson").
Step 2 -
Make a sub-folder or sub-directory of Cyberperson called "images".
Step 3 -
Save all of your .htm or .html files in the folder called Cyberperson.
Step 4 -
Store all of your graphic images (.gifs or .jpgs of icons, buttons, scanned photos, etc.) in your folder called Images.

Now you have a path which looks like this:
c:
c:\cyberperson
c:\cyberperson\images

c: is your hard disk
c:\cyberperson is your new folder
c:\cyberperson\images is your sub-folder of cyberperson

Note: Most Web site hosts allow you to create a sub-directory(except Geocities). This is extremely helpful for keeping order among your various files.
All .htm or .html files go in your primary directory.
All graphic images go into the sub-directory called "images".
It is much easier to find a file, either on your hard disk or on your Internet Web site, if the images (.gif and .jpg) files are in a separate directory and not mixed in with your html files.
To make sure your images load correctly, the code should look like this:
<IMG SRC="images/myimage.gif" BORDER=0 ALT="My Image">
 This will direct the browser to locate the graphic in the images sub-directory and then display it.

This can also be very helpful during the develpment stages of your web site, because you can preview your web site before you ever launch it up to the Internet.
To do a preview: (if you have set up the above)
Run your Web browser (I use Netscape), but do not connect to the Internet via telephone.
In the little window of Netscape called "location" (called "Address" in MSIE), type
c:\cyberperson\index.htm
then hit [Enter].
Your browser will load your Web site from your hard disk, just like it would on the Internet. This is a great way, and a great time, to check how your web page will look, check for misspelled words, and preview any images you have decided to use.
If you run Notepad at the same time, you can click from your browser to Notepad to make changes as you go. Another way of moving from your browser window to Notepad is to press [ALT] and [TAB] at the same time and it will switch you back and forth as needed.

If you choose not to do the above
For example, if you do work on your website and edit everything on your website, and your web site host crashes, you will lose everything you have done so far. Better to do the work and save it to your hard disk, then launch it up to your web site, so you will always have a recent copy of it on your hard disk.
It is also important to copy your files from your hard disk onto a floppy disk for safeckeeping. In the even of a hard disk crash, you have your work backed up onto a floppy for safekeeping.
Nothing has ever crashed, so you can skip this step? Think again. There are many people out there who thought the same thing. Now they are wringing their hands because they lost hours or weeks or months of work. Yes, it can happen to you!

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