Since you'll be creating web-based maps, you'll need to have space on a web server to publish them. Some of you may have your own personal website set up already. If so, you can use that. We used to have webspace at Penn State (referred to as PASS, short for Penn State Access Account Storage Space) but this was retired in July 2023. As a replacement we're suggesting 000webhost.com [1] which offers free accounts (1 free / user) and seems to have reliable uptime (which is also important and not always a given).
There's a number of alternative account options but it's the "Free Web Hosting" one that we're going to use.
There is one wrinkle - if you try to signup with your Penn State address you'll get an error message : "Please use an email address from a reputable email provider (like GMail or Outlook)." That's a slight inconvenience but we suspect everyone has their own alternative address.
Once you've created your account, create your new website (ignoring the annoying prompts to sign up for a premium account, you don't need one)
Name your website something like SURNAMEGeog863
Give it a password
It'll churn for a few seconds and you'll have a webpage.
If you're wondering what the URL is for your site it'll be the name you gave you site in all lower case (e.g. https://surnamegeog863.000webhostapp.com/ [2])
There's some instructions at your URL (once it's created) telling you how to build a simple website (we'll ignore that) and how to upload your own (which we'll be doing in Lesson 3 when you create a HTML page)
Once you've got your webspace allocated, there are a few ways to connect to it. Here are two, with the first being the one I recommend most:
FileZilla is a free and open-source secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) application. If you already have another SFTP app that you prefer, you're welcome to use it instead.
To find your FTP details, please log on to your members' area go to 'Settings' -> 'General Settings' -> 'FTP Details' section and you will be presented with your information.
If you don’t know your website password, please go to your members' area -> 'Manage Website' -> 'Settings' -> 'General' -> 'Password'
To avoid having to enter the same connection parameters every time, you can store them as follows:
Going forward, you can connect to your webspace in FileZilla by going to the Site Manager dialog, selecting the connection you created above, and clicking Connect.
Note: The application is set up by default to show a directory tree and a file listing for both the local and remote sites. If you're like me and prefer to see the directory tree and files in a single pane, you can toggle the directory trees off by clicking on the 3rd and 4th buttons in the toolbar.
You may encounter some web publishing tutorials that recommend you set up a blog. Blogs are preferable to a plain personal web page for most students because blogging software provides page authoring tools that simplify the publishing process. However, for this course, you should avoid setting up a blog. You will need to be able to write your own HTML from scratch and the blogging tools will only complicate matters.