This knowledgebase article was written with the first-time web site owner in mind and provides the basic steps to get your first web page online and get started in being the (web)master of your own domain...

This article assumes that you have already registered your domain name and have ordered a FutureQuest hosting package. Once your FutureQuest hosting package is set up, you will receive an Activation Letter. You will want to have that Activation Letter in front of you when going through these steps.

Step One: Your domain has to be pointed to the FutureQuest network in order for people to be able to see your web site when it is uploaded. This requires that you change your name servers to the FutureQuest Name Servers and that information is located here:
http://www.FutureQuest.net/Services/Transfer/

NOTE: If your domain is currently hosted with another host and you are moving it here, you will want to FIRST complete steps 3 and 4 before changing the name servers.

Here are the name servers for easy reference:

Your registrar may only require the names (ns1.FutureQuest.net, ns2.FutureQuest.net, etc) and not the numbers (69.5.6.2, 69.5.11.2, etc). They may also only require two name servers rather than all three. This is OK. The important part is that what you do provide is typed correctly.

Most domain registrars provide a management panel and that is where you would change the name servers for your domain. If you should need assistance in this area, please contact your domain registrar directly.

Once you change the name servers, there is a period of time known as propagation that must pass before services associated with your domain name will work properly. More about propagation can be read at the link below:
What is propagation?

Step Two: If you have not created your web page(s) yet, you'll want to do that next. See the following tutorial for help in constructing a very basic page:
Your First Web Page

Many site owners like to use third party web editors to make their designing easier. One such editor, which is free (donation driven) is KompoZer:
http://kompozer.net/

KompoZer is a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor that has the ability to upload files as well.

Note: Your "home" page, the one that you want to be seen when people access your site using just your domain name, must be named index dot something (such as index.html). See the following for more details:
http://service.FutureQuest.net/kba94

Step Three: Uploading the web page(s) that you have created. You can upload files via the CNC (Command 'N' Control) panel if the files are small and you have a small amount of them. Otherwise, you'll want to use FTP to upload the files.

The address of your CNC is given in the Activation Letter, along with the username and password you need to use to access your CNC. You can also visit the following link, provide your domain name where requested, and it will take you to your CNC:
http://www.FutureQuest.net/GoToCNC/

Depending on what tool you are using to create web pages it may have the ability to upload your files for you.

As noted above, if you used KompoZer to create your page(s), it has the ability to upload those files.

To use KompoZer to publish your web files to the FutureQuest server, you would set the following:

In the Publishing Server field:
ftp://EXAMPLE.COM.fqdns.net/
(Replace EXAMPLE.COM with your actual domain name. After the name server changes you made in step 1 have fully propagated, then you can use ftp://ftp.EXAMPLE.COM -- again replace EXAMPLE.COM with your actual domain name.)

In the Settings field under "Site subdirectory for this file", type:
/www

Note: It is very important that you upload files that are to be web-accessible to your www directory. A common error is to upload files to the directory above the /www directory which is not able to be accessed from the web which means that your visitors won't be able to see those files.

If you are using a standalone FTP client to upload your files, refer to your FutureQuest Activation Letter for the FTP server/hostname settings to use. The knowledgebase has articles on FTP along with links to popular FTP clients you can download and use. See:
What is FTP and how do I use it?

If you are using other tools you will need to consult the documentation for those tools to determine the settings needed.

Common problems:

• Why isn't my home page showing up?
  • Is it named index.html (or index.htm, index.php, etc)?
  • Is it in your www directory?
• Why aren't my images showing up?
  • Did you upload your images?
  • Is the path to the image correct in your web page? CaSe matters. The filename must be exactly the same as well.
• I updated my page. Why can't I see my changes?
  • Sometimes your browser (or ISP) will cache the result from a previous visit and you need to force a browser reload/refresh to see the new page/file by using SHIFT+reload, CTRL+F5, or in some cases SHIFT+CTRL+reload. If you use a Mac, try command-R. See the following for additional information:
    Page is not updating--old page is showing instead of new page?

Step 4: Getting started with email. Your email accounts can be set up in the CNC Email Manager. You can access your email accounts using QuestMail or via an email client that is installed on your local machine. After you've created the email account in your CNC, pay close attention as the screen that follows will give you the setting information you will need for accessing the email account.

Be sure to review the Helpful Hints in the CNC as well and there are also guides in the knowledgebase on using email at:
http://service.FutureQuest.net/cat4

We hope this quick guide will help you in getting started. For additional resources, we recommend the following:

• HTML and Website Basics:
  http://service.FutureQuest.net/cat30


• Knowledgebase Articles:
  http://service.FutureQuest.net/kb


• Community Support Forums:
  http://www.FutureQuest.net/forums/

If you have any questions about settings particular to your hosting package, please contact us via the Service Desk by visiting:
https://service.FutureQuest.net
or by sending an email to:
Service@FutureQuest.net