Ok well Im really new to all of this programming stuff but I heard that I a good way to practice HTML, XHTML, CSS...... and so on, is to make your own web page and try it all out there. Now this is FINE for me and all except for one problem. I dont know how to make my own web page. I mean I know HTML and stuff but I dont know how to make a page and put it up on the www. Please help. But if your can put the steps into simple terms that would be great.

Thanks
-Melissa-I'll tell about two basic ways of doing this.  One is to find out whether you ISP (Internet Service Provider) allows their accountholders to have a personal website by providing some disk space for that purpose as part of the services included in your account.  For example, I use Earthlink.  I can, and do, have a personal website; the URL is something like this: http://home.earthlink.net/~myusername/ [not the actual username]. With Earthlink, I can either use their online webpage creation tool; this INVOLVES creating pages via a web browser window [see http://www.earthlink.net/software/free/trellix/ ] and is limited in what you can do.  The other way I can do this is to create the web pages on my computer and then upload them to my Earthlink account.

Now, if you want to have a URL something like www.mysite.com, then you NEED to register your website name, called a Domain Name, with a service such as www.godaddy.com, create an account with a web hosting service such as www.totalchoicehosting.com [starter plan is only $4/mo], and then upload your pages once you're ready.    Thanks for the quick responce How do I find out if my internet provider allows that? I use Windows Internet Explorer. And If my internet provider does, then how do I go about putting the stuff up on the internet and so on?Visit their website and search for info on the features included in their service.  If you can't find any info their website, you could call them and inquire about it.  I don't know that offering disk space for a personal website is common practice among ISP s, so your ISP may not have it.

If they do provide that benefit in their package, you'll probably have one or both options for getting web pages published, as I mentioned in my previous post.  Again, I can either create pages on my Earthlink by logging on to my Earthlink account and using the web page creation tool where pages are created in your web browser.  Under this SCENARIO, you do not have your web page files on your computer; they reside only on the ISP's server.  

Alternatively, I can upload them in the same manner I would upload pages to a regular web hosting service such as www.totalchoicehosting.com.  To do that, I use software called WS_FTP.  The technique is called FTP (File Transfer Protocol).  Using WS_FTP, or a similar software, I connect directly a server and upload web pages I've created ON MY COMPUTER to the server.
awsome. Thanks for your help. It really helps alot Ah man your probably going to think im an idiot lol but I cant find my internet provides page. Like I did find a page for it but it didnt tell me if I was able to do that.Call Customer Service...Who is your internet provider?

Windows XP comes with a stripped down version of Microsoft's web server, IIS.  You can install this COMPONENT and run your own web server on your computer.  For you, this is probably the simplest option, provided you don't want to do anything too complex at first.

Once you've started designing your website, you point your web browser at http://127.0.0.1 (the address of your local PC).