The first thing a person needs to do to put up a website is to get some tools. You'll need an HTML editor, an image editor, and an ftp client. You may also want to get a midi editor if you want to work on sound files for your site.

There are a few good HTML editors that are free for downloading , but my favorite one is the one in Open Office. Open Office is a complete office suite that is open source and is part of most Linux distributions. It can also be used under Windows and Mac OSX. The only time I use a WYSIWYG editor is to start the page layout. It lets me see how the page is going to look and then I switch to a text editor to add any javascript or java or to embed the sound, set up tables, etc.. Part of the reason I use the Open Office html editor is because I can switch back and forth quickly between WYSIWYG and text modes.

There are any number of image editors, but again I like open source, and I like the GIMP for my major image work. You can however, use any paint program that comes with your operating system to do work such as banners, buttons, and such. Just remember to save them as either .JPG or .GIF files as they are the most cross browser compatible files and can be easily manipulated at a later date. GIF files are also very small and open quickly. For quick image manipulation in MSWindows I like to use Irfanview, and for making animated gifs there is Animator9. Animator9 is written in java and can be used by any java enabled operating system.

Many times you would like to add midi files to your webpage. You collect some from the web resources listed on the webmaster page here, but you don't quite like the sound or you wish there was another track with another instrument. That is where Anvil Studio comes in handy. You can open that midi file and manipulate it freely then save it the way you want hear it.

The last thing you'll need is a file transfer program to get your files up to your webspace. Some webspace providers, like geocities, provide this service for you. However, most do not so you'll need an ftp client. WSFTP-LE is great for Windows and Fetch for the MAC. Linux has several different ftp clients. Filezilla and jftp (available at javaarchives.com) are also very good and are simple to use. Jftp is written in java and, therefore, can be used in any OS that is java enabled. There is a tutorial on how to ftp here along with a list of good ftp clients for your operating system.

There are a few resources here in the webhelp pages that can also help with your page creation. There are some generators as well as some cheat sheets to help with the formatting of the pages and some websafe color charts.

You now have all the free tools you need to create your web pages. All you need now is your idea. Good luck!