Create websites for one-off events

Go to www.disposablewebpage.com. When the page loads, click the ‘Create a Disposable Web Page’ link to continue. At the next screen, give the website a title – this is what will actually appear as the website heading – and then fill in the security code and click the Create Web Page button.

The Disposable Web Page site doesn’t provide very memorable addresses for websites so the next thing to do is bookmark it by clicking the Bookmark this page! link. We are using Internet Explorer, so when the Add a Favorite dialogue box opens, we can just click the Add button. It is also a good idea to copy the website address in the box and then paste that into any emails you send to friends and family. Then they can bookmark the site as well. You can always shorten the address (See our Workshop on how to create short links at www.computeractive.co.uk/2187865).

The next screen displays the Login Master Key, a short password that you will need if you want to edit the page at a later date. From here you can also email a copy of the key to yourself in case you forget it by clicking the Set Email link. At the next screen, specify the address to send the key to and click the Set Email button. Finally, click the Send Current Master Key to Email and after that click the Dashboard link at the top to continue. If you can’t see the link just click the Back button first.

By default, the web page will vanish after 90 days. To change that, scroll down to the Master Key Only Privileges section of the page and click the Set Disposal Time link. At the next page, open the list of available dates and choose the one that is most suitable. In this example we are shortening the life of the website to 28 days, to coincide with the event we are planning – a birthday party. After choosing the date, click the Set Disposal Time button to confirm. Then, click the Edit Page link at the top to start work on the page.

The Disposable Web Page editing window opens so you can start to type in some text. Many of the buttons on the button bar should be familiar from other Windows programs like Word – they can be used to format paragraphs, change text formatting, add pictures, links and even edit the underlying HTML code. We are going to keep things simple by typing in a sentence that announces the purpose of the site – to celebrate a birthday. Then we will highlight the text with the cursor and open the Format dropdown menu to increase the size.

Now let’s add a photograph. Move the entry cursor to the beginning of line one and then click on the button with a little tree on it to open the Insert/edit image dialogue. Disposable Web Page requires images that are already stored somewhere on the web, such as a Flickr or Picasa account.If you don’t have one, see our free online Workshop on creating a Flickr account at www.computeractive.co.uk/2212096. Here we have copied the URL of a photograph from Flickr.

Switch back to the Insert/edit image dialogue box, click in the Image URL field and then press Ctrl and V to paste in the image address. Click the Insert button. Picture too big? Click on it once to select it and then drag in the handles on the outside edge to make it smaller. Then do some simple formatting. Click in front of the first word of text and press Return to move it onto a new line. Then hold down Ctrl and A to highlight everything and click the ‘centre text’ button.

Having made the formatting changes, click the Save & Continue Editing button. (It’s important to do this every few minutes in order to save your work). Next, let’s add a link. Type in ‘If you’d like to keep up to date by email instead, send us a message’. Then highlight the word ‘message’ and click the link button. When the dialogue box opens, type ‘mailto:’ and then your preferred email address. Then click the Insert button to add the link to the web page.

And here’s the page we’ve created so far. Visitors can check for any new information, while we can click the Login to Edit Page link at the top to add further information, pictures and links as the days go by. Visitors can also use the page in other ways. For example, if they click the countdown button at the top they can grab the HTML code to display a special countdown button on their own blog or web page, by highlighting it and then choosing Ctrl and C to copy it to the clipboard.

Here we have gone to Blogger (www.blogger.com) and opened one of our blogs. Then we have gone into the dashboard and added an HTML gadget (one of many extras built into services like this) and then simply used Ctrl and V to paste the code into the window. Then we have typed in a title for the widget and clicked the Save button. This places a fancy-looking widget on our blog that will count down day by day until granddad’s birthday. We’ve kept the HTML gadget window open so you can see it.