How to Update Your Web Site

There are many terms that are used to describe the process of updating your web site. You will see them used by different people at different times, but they all really mean the same thing.

First, there is the content of your web pages, the page HTML, images, Flash, and other supporting materials. So you will see "web pages, graphics, files, web content" terms used to describe what we need to get onto or update on the web site.

Second, there is the process of updating the files, this may be described by the following verbs: put, upload, publish, update, FTP, copy up, etc. All of these are pretty much interchangable terms.

There is a step that I've not discussed, which is the preparation of your materials. The authoring step is very much a personal choice based upon the tools you like to use.

So it's that simple, all that you would ever need to do is the following:

you need to web publish your content onto the server for the first time
later you may need to add new content or update exisiting content

Atarex lets you use WebDAV to publish content to our servers. There are other methods available, such as FTP and SCP, but these are not generally offered as options: they can be much more complex to deal with. WebDAV is simple and easy -- it has been a success for most of our customers.

You can learn more about Atarex and WebDAV, but lets get started.

For Windows 98, WebDAV is called "Web Folders" and you can access them from: My Computer > Web Folders. If you do not see "Web Folders" as a option to choose, then please review this document and then contact support@atarex.com for further help.

For Windows ME, 2000, XP, 2003, WebDAV is part of "My Network Places" and you can access it from: My Computer and from the Start menu.

The instructions are the same for all Windows operating systems.

You will see a menu with a choice to "Add a new" folder or my network place.
Click on this to start the wizard.
Type in "http://www.YOURDOMAIN.TLD/"

Do not type the quotes shown in the example.
Where YOURDOMAIN.TLD is your domain name.
Do not forget the /, the trailing forward slash, at the end.

The wizard will try to connect to the web server, you should be asked to log in.

Use your username and password.
You can check the "remember my password" to save time.
Contact Atarex if you do not have one or have forgotten your password.

Once you are successfully connected, you may name the network place anything you like.

We usually use the default URL name.

Click on the Finish button to save the new item to your folder.

From now on, you will be able to return to this area and use your WebDAV saved item to gain easy access to web publish on your web site.

WebDAV looks like another hard drive on your computer, but it is slower because it works over the network. There are folders and files, you can create, copy, delete, and rename files and folders just as you would on your hard drive. That's what makes it simple. You can cut and paste files to web publish them, and if you're fancy, you can just drag and drop them into your WebDAV area.

WebDAV makes things very simple. Enjoy!

We also suggest you read our documentation on web production values, this will be released shortly.

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