When you're ready to publish your pages, upload them to your home directory on MAIN via FTP ("File Transfer Protocol"). To do that, you'll need an FTP program. We recommend WS_FTP, available as shareware at www.tucows.com.

When you first open it up, there's a panel called "session properties." Enter your data into the boxes:

Host Name/Address: www.main.org
User ID: {your user id}
Password: {your password}

and check the box that says "Save Pwd." You can also supply a name in the "Profile name" box -- for example, "My MAIN site."

Click the "OK" button, and it will connect you to the MAIN host server. You'll see two panels, the left one showing a directory structure for your "Local System," and the one on the right showing your home directory on the "Remote System" -- the MAIN host server.

Between the two panels are two arrows, one pointing right ("upload") and one pointing left ("download"). If you click on a file on the left and then click the upload arrow, it will transfer the file to your MAIN directory. Once there, the file name will show up in the right panel. (You'll hardly ever need to use the "download" arrow, but it's there if you ever need to.)

You should see a file already in the remote directory: "index.html." This is just a placeholder, to be overwritten with your actual home page, which must also be called "index.html" .

If you like, you can use the "Startup" tab on the "Session Properties" panel to set the local directory. That way, when you open up WS_FTP, the left panel will show the directory where you keep the web pages you are working on.