Welcome to the GulfTel Support Site

Building your own website

As a GulfTel dial-up or Broadband customer, you have 5 megabytes of webspace that you can use to build your own personal website. Once you've built and uploaded your website, you'll be able to view it by going to:
http://ftp.gulftel.com/username
(where "username" is the first part of your GulfTel username. For example, if your username is "johndoe.gulftel.com", then your website address is "http://ftp.gulftel.com/johndoe")

Webspace is given out only by request. To have your space set up on the server, please contact our webmaster. Your FTP access to the server will be activated within 48 hours.

Creating your site

Websites are created using a computer language called HTML. HTML contains many different tags for building complex websites, but the basics of HTML can be mastered fairly easily. For example, this piece of HTML code:

<b>Hello!</b> Welcome to my <font color="blue">website!</font>

produces this output on a web page:

Hello! Welcome to my website!

Learning HTML
You can write HTML code in any text editor program, including Notepad. A number of websites can help you learn the basics of HTML so you can create your own web pages from scratch. A few suggestions:

Annabella's HTML Tutorial

HTML For Beginners from CNET

HTML Basics from WebMonkey

Interactive HTML Tutorial, including instructions for HTML, site design and layout, image editing and more.

Using a WYSIWYG HTML Editor
If you'd rather not learn HTML, however, there are a number of programs that let you create webpages using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. These programs work a lot like word processors, and many of them are free. Some of the more popular ones include:

Macromedia Dreamweaver (commercial - Free trial available)

Macromedia HomeSite (commercial - Free trial available)

Netscape Composer (a free component of Netscape)

Microsoft FrontPage * (commercial)

AceHTML (free)

1st Page 2000 (free)
* Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions not supported

Creating/Editing Images
If you want to create your own images, you'll also need an image editor program. Professional editing tools can cost hundreds of dollars, but many other tools are available for much less. If you have a Windows machine, you might already have tools such as Microsofts Photo Editor or Microsoft Image Editor. Here are some other options:

Adobe Photoshop, the premier (and expensive) professional graphics editing application.

Macromedia Fireworks, a full featured graphic editor optimized for web-based graphics.

Paint Shop Pro, an cheap (but powerful) alternative to Photoshop.

PhotoPlus, a free image creation/editing tool.

Uploading your site

Once you've created your site, you're ready to upload it to the GulfTel web server so the world can see your masterpiece. You'll need an FTP program in order to transfer the files from your computer to the GulfTel server. Many versions of Windows comes with a built-in FTP program (discussed below), but there are other, easier programs you can use, most of which are free or inexpensive. Some HTML editing programs contain their own built-in FTP functions. Other FTP programs include:

WS_FTP LE, a free, powerful FTP client

BulletProof FTP, an FTP client that specializes in reconnecting and resuming transfers after broken connections

CuteFTP

Fetch (for Macintosh users)

To upload your files, use your FTP program to connect to ftp.gulftel.com. Login using your GulfTel username and password. This will connect you to your home directory, where you can upload your files.

Using WS_FTP

Here's an example from WS_FTP LE. This "Session Properties" window pops up when you first start WS_FTP.
The "Profile Name" is set to something easy to remember. The "Host Name/Address" is ftp.gulftel.com, and the "User ID" and "Password" should be set to your GulfTel username and password. The "Anonymous" checkbox has been unchecked, and "Save Pwd" has been checked so you won't have to type your password every time you want to connect. "Host Type" is left at the default of Automatic Detect, and "Account" and "Comment" are left blank.

Once connected, WS_FTP displays a screen with two windows. The contents of your hard drive are on the left, and the contents of your webspace on the GulfTel server are on the right. In this example, the files under
"C:\My Documents\Website" (left window) are ready to be uploaded to the "/" directory on the GulfTel server (right window).
To do that, the files can be simply dragged from the left window to the right window. You can also just double-click the files in the left window to upload them to the GulfTel server.

Using Internet Explorer as an FTP program
Instructions for using the built-in Windows FTP program (which is part of Internet Explorer) varies depending on which version of Windows you're using. In some versions, you can access your site by starting Internet Explorer and going to the URL:
     ftp://ftp.gulftel.com
Windows will then pop up a box prompting you to login with your GulfTel username and password. If you get an error message, however, you can try opening this URL instead:
    ftp://username@ftp.gulftel.com
(where "username" is your GulfTel username - e.g. ftp://johndoe@ftp.gulftel.com)
If that URL still generates an error, try using this URL instead:
    ftp://username:password@ftp.gulftel.com
(where "username" is the first part of your GulfTel username and "password" is your GulfTel password - e.g. ftp://johndoe:mypassword@ftp.gulftel.com)

Once you get a working URL, Windows will display your website files in an FTP window. Although you can't edit the files directly on the website, you can now drag-and-drop files and folders to and from the FTP window to your hard drive. (With some older versions of Windows, you may not be able to drag-and-drop. Instead, click on the files with your right mouse button and choose the "Copy to Folder..." option to transfer them to your hard drive)

Conclusion

Your website can now be viewed by going to http://ftp.gulftel.com/username
(where "username" is the first part of your GulfTel username.) Make sure that you name your main webpage "index.html"; otherwise, you'll get a "Forbidden" error message when you try to visit your website. (Note how one of the files in the left window of the WS_FTP example above is named "index.html"; that file serves as the "front page" of the example website.)

We hope you enjoy building your website! Please remember that your free webspace is for personal, non-profit content. If you need to build a commercial site, please contact us to discuss our commercial webspace offerings.