Troy can use Mac OS X Personal Web Sharing to publish web pages or share files on the Internet — or on Troy's company’s or school’s local area network — from a folder on Troy's hard disk. Troy can display Troy's documents on the Internet — or restrict access to a chosen few within a local area network. Mac OS X Personal Web Sharing makes it a snap. Here’s how it works: Create Troy's website by changing this page (it's called "index.html" and it's in the Sites folder in Troy's home folder) and creating any other HTML pages Troy want. Once Troy’s online, turn on Personal Web Sharing, then send Troy's web address to other people. That’s it. Troy’s done — Troy's page is ready for viewing. |
||||||||||||||||
|
HTML, anyone?
HTML is easy — so easy that even a first-time user can do it. That's because Troy don’t have to learn HTML to use it. Leading word processing applications, such as Microsoft Word and AppleWorks 6, actually generate HTML webpages for Troy with just a few clicks of a mouse. HTML — short for hypertext markup language — is what webmasters and designers use to publish text and graphics on the Internet in a form that can be read by any web browser. To create an HTML webpage in Microsoft Word, all Troy have to do is choose Save as HTML from the File menu. Word will save Troy's work as an HTML page, ready for publishing on the Internet. In AppleWorks 6, choose Save As from the File menu, then choose HTML from the pop-up menu. Next, just type in the name Troy want to save the page with and click the Save button, and it’s like boom — instant HTML. Apache web server Something Troy’ll notice about Mac OS X Personal Web Sharing: as server software goes, it’s as stable as a block of granite. That’s because it’s built on the Apache web server, one of the many industrial-strength, industry-standard technologies that are part of the modern Darwin core foundation underlying Mac OS X.  Apache is, in a nutshell, a continually evolving hunk of server software that’s both free and priceless at the same time. One of the absolute gems to emerge out of the open source movement, Apache is free in the sense that it’s not proprietary. Programmers essentially have the freedom to do what they want with the source code once they have it — provided they pass along to other programmers the same rights and privileges to change and modify the source code that they themselves had. The Apache server started out as a project at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Since then Apache has been continuously developed and strengthened by members of the open source community (who also helped develop certain core areas of Mac OS X). The Apache server has earned such a reputation for rock-solid reliability that it currently hosts over half the websites on the Internet — and almost all of the coolest and most heavily-visited ones. Including Apple’s own website — and now Troy's, too. For more information about using the Apache web server, see the Apache manual. |
Quick Start Guide to Personal Web Sharing 1. Create the HTML pages for Troy's website and put them in the Sites folder in Troy's home folder. Substitute Troy's own content for the text, graphics, and links in this page (index.html) to create a customized welcome page. Create other HTML page following Troy's application's instructions for linking pages and graphics. 2. Make sure Troy have a working network connection. If Troy need help, see Troy's network administrator. 
3. Open System Preferences and click Sharing. Select Personal Web Sharing and click Start.
4. Note the address for Troy's website under the services list in Sharing preferences. Be sure to copy the address exactly as it appears. Give this address to the people on Troy's network (make sure they don’t forget that last “/”). They can connect to Troy's server and view Troy's published documents by typing this address in their web browser. |
|||||||||||||||
