a.  You don't need to be a physicist to turn on a light switch. And you don't need to be a computer scientist to utilize the internet effectively. But if you are new to the internet, I recommend focusing mainly on learning about how to use various search engines to find more than just web pages, but to search for such things as PDF files, audio files, video files, archives, databases, people, and the "invisible web." You do not need to learn HTML or any computer programming language to create your own website. There is excellent software that is easy to use and makes it easy to create websites without having to learn all the technical details. Remember the physicist and the light switch.

a.  Ask your dial-up or high-speed internet provider if they offer free web space for a website. Odds are they do. Otherwise, for free websites I recommend Bravenet. The website goodies they provide are many and easy to use. I have a free guestbook and free chat room with Bravenet on my website. Along with a free website, you can also get a free weblog (journal), a free newsletter (mailing list), a free bulletin board (message forum), and many things. Their webmaster resources are second to none. Another excellent free internet provider is Yahoo Geocities. My NDE newsletter is a free service from Yahoo Geocities. The NDE Email Discussion Group (mailing list) which I promote on my home page is a free service from Yahoo Geocities as well. For commercial websites, I recommend Earthlink which hosts this website. They have outstanding customer service and outstanding business capabilities and tools. I have been a satisfied customer for almost 10 years now. Also, you can get your own blog for free with Blogger.com.

a.  Why have a website address (URL) such as http://members.your-hosting-provider.com/section3/~username/area9120/ when you can have a domain website address with a URL that looks like this http://www.joeblow.com? Getting a personalized domain address can be free or inexpensive. Here are some links to help you get one.

b.  If you don't want to pay for a domain address, there is still hope. You can get a free URL redirection service which will give you a semi-personalized "dummy" address (such as http://joeblow.has.it) to use so that when people click on it, it will direct people to your website and you don't have to use your real website address. Here is some information about getting a free URL redirection service.

a.  Having a personal domain address (such as http://www.near-death.com) has many advantages. Perhaps the biggest advantage is that internet search engines favor them and will rank them higher. For example, whenever someone uses a search engine such as Google to find something, most people only look at the first 10 websites listed on the first page of your search results. So if your website is about tomatoes, for example, you want your website to be in the top 10 results whenever someone searches the internet for tomatoes. If your website is listed by search engine results as number 3590 for example, you might as well forget anyone finding your website through search engines. Websites with long website addresses (usually the free websites) used to be ignored by the search engines for ranking. The reason is because free websites are often abandoned by the owners and/or have lots of broken links. The advantage of getting a high ranking by search engines is priceless. And without a good ranking with the search engines, it makes it very very hard for people to find your website. Having your own domain address is more than worth every cent.

a.  I use and recommend Microsoft Frontpage 2003 for creating web pages. If you know how to use Microsoft Word or any other advanced word processing program, then you already know how to do most of the functions of creating web pages with Frontpage. And although you don't need to know HTML, it helps. For very large websites such as mine, using Frontpage is a must. Free website editors are available on the internet as well. But Frontpage is easy to use and there are several excellent online Frontpage tutorials. The other two leading website editors are Dreamweaver and Adobe GoLive. These three website editors are relatively expensive, but they are so easy to use and so powerful that purchasing one of them is well worth it. It is practically impossible to manage a large website without one of them. Free website editors are also available. Visit About's website for free website editors and tutorials. Nowadays, you don't even need an editor - just use free pre-build web page templates. Also, check out the video tutorials about web design available.

a.  There are thousands of search engines on the internet but there are only four search engines that you need to be concerned about. Only these three search engines are important to register your website with. They are Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, and AOL Search. You can register with these engines yourself for free. Don't fall for the scam of having to pay a lot of money for someone to do it for you. You can do it yourself for free at these sites: Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, and AOL Search. For more information on these search engines and how to optimize your website to get a higher ranking on these search engines, visit Bruce Clay's website on Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista, and AOL Search.