Scheduled Outage: Tuesday, August 8, 2006, from 03:00 to 08:00 EDT

On Tuesday, August 8, 2006, we will be upgrading equipment supporting the Personal Web Pages environment. In order to prevent any data loss, all SBC Personal Web Pages will be read-only for that time.

To repeat, you will be able to READ pages at

http://home.ameritech.net/
http://pages.cthome.net/
http://home.nvbell.net/
http://home.pacbell.net/
http://home.swbell.net/
http://pages.prodigy.com/
http://pages.prodigy.net/
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/
http://flashpages.prodigy.net/
http://wanspages.prodigy.net/

You will not be able to upload pages using FTP. Nor will the various web editors be available at

http://publish.ameritech.net/
http://php2.cthome.net/
http://home.nvbell.net/
http://home.pacbell.net/
http://home.swbell.net/
http://bldblocks.prodigy.net/

A maintenance notice will be in place during the outage.

We appreciate your patience as we work to make SBC Personal Web Pages better.

Sorry We've Been Unresponsive

If you have sent mail to the PWP help mailbox in the past month, please accept my apologies. We've been inundated with spam, and the squirrel pressing the DELETE key is not working fast enough. Maybe we should get one of those drinking birds.

Scheduled Outage: Sunday, November 13, 2005, from 05:00 to 08:30 Eastern Time

On Sunday, November 13, 2005, between 05:00 and 08:30 a.m. EST, SBC Internet Services will be making changes to backend systems to improve performance and reliability. During this time, some SBC Personal Web Page services will be unavailable.

The Page Creator/Manager and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) services for members in nvbell.net, pacbell.net, snet.net, and swbell.net will be unavailable.

Your personal web pages will be readable, but you will be unable to make changes to them.

Affected Services:

• https://home.nvbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.nvbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.nvbell.net/

• https://home.pacbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.pacbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.pacbell.net/

• https://home.swbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.swbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.swbell.net/

• http://php2.cthome.net/
• ftp://pages.cthome.net/

Extended Outage: Sunday, October 16, 2005, from 05:00 to 11:00 Eastern Time

On Sunday, 16 October, between 04:00 and 10:00 CDT, SBC Internet Services will be making changes to backend systems to improve performance and reliability. During this time, some SBC Personal Web Page services will be unavailable.

The Page Creator/Manager and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) services for members in nvbell.net, pacbell.net, snet.net, and swbell.net will be unavailable.

Your personal web pages will be readable, but you will be unable to make changes to them.

Affected Services:

• https://home.nvbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.nvbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.nvbell.net/

• https://home.pacbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.pacbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.pacbell.net/

• https://home.swbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/creator.cgi
• https://home.swbell.net/pagetools/cgi-bin/start.cgi
• ftp://home.swbell.net/

• http://php2.cthome.net/
• ftp://pages.cthome.net/

Podcasting with SBC Personal Web Pages

Your SBC Personal Web Page is your space on the Web. You can do anything you like with that space, except violate the Acceptable Use Policy. We provide you with 15MB of space to store your HTML, your images, and your media. If you are making music with Apple's GarageBand, then you can upload the files to your Personal Web Page space. If you are writing a novel with Blogger, then you can publish it in your Personal Web Page space. And if you are podcasting, you can podcast from your Personal Web Page space.

What's podcasting?

Podcasting is recording your voice, or whatnot; providing some meta-data in a file in the RSS format; and telling your friends where to find it. They then subscribe to your podcast with an aggregator of some sort, such as iTunes, and listen to it at their leisure, either on their iPod or other media player, or on their desk.

So, how does one podcast using one's SBC Personal Web Page? I'm glad you asked.

1. Upload your MP3 file to your Personal Web Page site.
2. Make an RSS file about the MP3 file.
3. Upload that to your Personal Web Page site
4. Tell your friends where to find the RSS file.

A minimal RSS file containing a podcast looks like this:


<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>SBC Personal Web Pages Sample</title>
<link>http://pages.prodigy.net/</link>
<item>
<description>This is a sample &lt;a href="http://pages.prodigy.net/charles.cox/my.mp3"&gt;podcast&lt;/a&gt;.
</description>
<enclosure url="http://pages.prodigy.net/charles.cox/my.mp3" length="10" type="audio/mpeg"/>
</item>
</channel>
</rss>

If you use FeedBurner in conjunction with Blogger, making the RSS file with the necessary elements is not much work. FeedBurner takes care of all the niggling details.

Your Very Own Domain Name!

I received an e-mail from a Prodigy member, in which he asked if SBC Yahoo! is a real ISP, and if we sold domain names.

Yes, SBC Yahoo! is an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The features offered under the SBC Yahoo! brand differ slightly from those offered under the Prodigy brand. However, as far as Internet access goes they are identical.

If I understand you correctly, you would like a domain name to use with the web pages you now have in your Personal Web Page space. The Personal Web Page environment does not directly support displaying those pages under your own domain. There are third parties which offer domain forwarding services; however, since I am unfamiliar with those providers, I hesitate to recommend one over the other.

There are two separate products which you will need to purchase, but those can be purchased together. You will need to register a domain name. Any of the ICANN-accredited registrars, such as SBC Yahoo!, can do this for you. Once you have a domain name, you will need to host your site somewhere. If you use a domain forwarder, this can be your SBC Personal Web Page. If not, you might consider SBC Yahoo! Small Business Web Hosting or SBC Yahoo! GeoCities Pro. Signing up for either of these hosting products will allow you register a domain name at the same time.

If you have upgraded your Prodigy account to SBC Yahoo!, you already have access to SBC Yahoo! GeoCities Free, and may find it easiest to upgrade that product to the SBC Yahoo! GeoCities Pro plan.

Feel free to write us if you have further questions about domain registration or these SBC Yahoo! products. You may also find the ICANN FAQ helpful.

Extended Outage: Thursday, May 12, 2005, from 03:00 to 08:00 Eastern Time

On Thursday, May 12, 2005, we will be upgrading equipment to support the Personal Web Pages environment. In order to prevent any data loss, all SBC Personal Web Pages will be read-only for that time.

To repeat, you will be able to READ pages at

http://home.ameritech.net/
http://pages.cthome.net/
http://home.nvbell.net/
http://home.pacbell.net/
http://home.swbell.net/
http://pages.prodigy.com/
http://pages.prodigy.net/
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/
http://flashpages.prodigy.net/
http://wanspages.prodigy.net/

You will not be able to upload pages using FTP. Nor will the various web editors be available at

http://publish.ameritech.net/
http://php2.cthome.net/
http://home.nvbell.net/
http://home.pacbell.net/
http://home.swbell.net/
http://bldblocks.prodigy.net/

A maintenance notice will be in place during the outage.

We appreciate your patience as we work to make SBC Personal Web Pages better.