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Back The first step is to decide what type of content and how much to insert into your custom-made portal. Some of the most common elements included in portals are news links, sports, weather, stocks, and e-mail accounts. Perhaps less obvious is the ability to include search engine forms on your own site! Two search engines that provide this service are Snap! and Infoseek. To acquire the search box, you will need to cut and paste the HTML that controls it into your page. In addition, there are other sites, such as online dictionaries and tech sites, that will permit you to set up a search box. The way you organize the elements is entirely up to you, so be creative. This is your portal and here Microsoft and Yahoo! can't tell you what to do. We at The Web Portal Source have crafted our own little sample custom-made portal for you to use as a source of ideas. It's not fancy, but it doesn't have to be. We decided to organize our page by putting the most-often used services--chat, e-mail, and weather, etc.--at the top. Beneath that, we set up several links to sites we frequent. And in the middle, we placed a nice search box from Infoseek, followed by a search box from Dictionary.com, for when we come across a word we've never heard before. When you're done with your portal, you need to decide where to store it. If you have a free home page on Tripod or Geocities, you could post it there and set that URL as your start page. Or, if you want quick loading, you can store the HTML file on your hard drive somewhere and set that local file as the portal. Now go, fellow Web pioneer, and have the Web--your way! |
