Problem: My .html file will not
upload to GeoCities.
This is often the dreaded "invalid file" problem. Don't ask me what
causes it. If you ever figure it out, let me know.
There is an easy work around. (These instructions
are Macintosh specific, but I'll bet you can figure out how to do the
same thing on Windows.)
- Open the .html text of
your page. In Netscape Composer, you can choose Page Source
or HTML Source from the View menu. Or you can open you page in
SimpleText.
This will allow you to see the HTML code that makes up the file.
- From the Edit menu, choose Select All. Some programs do not
let you access
the menus while you are viewing a page source, but using the keyboard
equivalents
of the commands may still work. Mac uses Apple-A. Windows uses
Control-A.
- From the Edit menu, choose Copy. Mac uses Apple-C. Windows
uses Control-C.
- In the GeoCities file manager:
- If you are trying to upload a file that has not been on
GeoCities before:
- Click the New button which you will find just a bit
above or below your list of files. The HTML editor will open.
- In the Filename field, type the name for your .html page, for example: index.html.
- If you are trying to replace an existing file already on
GeoCities:
- Click the check box to the left of the name of the file
you want to replace.
- Click the Edit button which you will find just a bit
above or below your list of files. The HTML editor will open.
- You will see a scrolling field full of HTML code. Click the
cursor inside this window.
- From the Edit menu, choose Select All.
- From the Edit menu, choose Paste.
- Click the Save button. The File Manger will appear again.
- In the list of files, click the View link to the left of
the page you just created or edited to see if your new page looks good.
Note: If you have a page you are satisfied with,
but just want to make a
small change, you might want to use the Copy button before you use the
Edit
button to make a back-up file on GeoCities in case something goes wrong.
Problem: My image files will not upload to GeoCities.
Solution 1: Try
again. Sometimes it tells you the files uploaded successfully when they
really
didn't. They often go up on the second or third try.
Solution 2: Try again tomorrow. You may have uploaded too much today.
GeoCities has a limit. And sometimes GeoCities misbehaves. Perhaps it
is
a problem with them. Perhaps it is a problem with the Internet. These
problems
often vanish the next day.
Solution 3: Create a new GeoCities account. If the File Manager
says
you have zero space available and won't even let you copy a small file
when
you have not actually put up a lot of files already, your account is
corrupted.
How does this happen? I have no idea. You can create a new account and
start
over, or you can worry about how your account
got corrupted. I say, move on.
Problem: My page and images uploaded, but now my images are
missing from the page. What went wrong?
Solution 1: Your images may not be named correctly. Use lower case
letters
and numbers to name your image files. Do not use spaces in file names.
If
you really want a space, use an underline instead. Remember to put .jpg at
the end of JPEG file names or .gif
at the end of GIF file names. Flame Going Out
3 is a bad file name. flame_going_out_3.jpg
is a good file name. Your local computer is often more tolerant of bad
names
than a web server, so badly named images may look fine before you
upload,
but not appear after they are uploaded.
Solution 2: Your page composing program may have given the image an
absolute path instead
of a relative path. If the entire path to the image is in the
<IMG>
tag, the web page looks for your image in a specific location on your
local
computer. When you view the page on your local computer, the image
looks
fine. When you upload the page and view it, the image may still look
fine.
But when you view the same page on another computer, the image does not
appear
because the web browser does not have access to the original computer,
which
is where it is looking for the images.
- Open your .html file
in your web page editing program, for example Netscape Composer.
- Open the dialog that specifies the image file location. In
Composer, double click the image.
- Delete the path information, leaving only the actual file
name. file:///Hard%Drive/Documents/Web%20Pages/Science%20Site/flame_going_out_3.jpg
is an absolute (bad) image location. flame_going_out_3.jpg
is a relative (good) image location.
- Upload your .html file
to GeoCities again.
Note: You could edit the HTML code while the file is
up on GeoCities, but then if you ever uploaded your original file
again,
you would be restoring the problem.
Problem: Darned near anything else, including "GeoCities will
not let me create a site." or "My GeoCities site vanished."
Solution: Try again later. GeoCities is a huge,
technologically complex thing. Sometimes, for some reason, it just does
not
work. But usually, a few hours or days later, everything is back to
normal
again. ALWAYS upload your files to GeoCities a couple of days before
you actually need them to be there.
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