Entering DNS Server Information
Assuming that you registered your domain name through Network Solutions, go to Network Solutions' home page (http://www.networksolutions.com/). You should see the screen shown in Figure 6. (If you used a different provider, go to their home page instead; the following instructions are for Network Solutions, but most providers use some approximation of this procedure.)
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Network Solutions' home page.
On the top blue menu bar is a link labeled Make Changes. Click this link and the Manage Your Account page should appear (see Figure 7). In the drop-down list, select or type your domain name, girlswithknives in this example, and then click the Go! button. A login page appears, as shown in Figure 8.
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Manage Your Account page.
Login page.
When you registered your domain name, you were given both an account number and a password (see my last article). Enter that info into the first two text boxes. Ignore the other text boxes. Click the first Login button to reach a page where you select the service you want to modify (see Figure 9). You'll be modifying your DNS server information. Select your domain name from the drop-down list underneath the Modify Hosting (DNS) and Contact Information label; then click Go! to go to the Modify DNS and contact Information page (see Figure 10).
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Service modification selection page.
DNS, technical contact, and domain administrator modification.
This page summarizes account holder and domain name information and allows you to change DNS, contact, and administrator information. Click on the first link, Change Hosting (DNS) Information, which brings you to a warning page (see Figure 11).
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Warning page.
The tone of this page is rather ominous, warning you of all the services you won't be able to sign up for, but trust me, for the type of personal Web businesses we're developing you really don't need Network Solutions to provide those services. Click the Continue button to get to the screen where you can finally enter the DNS server information from that you got from your Web hosting provider (see Figure 12).
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DNS server information page.
Enter the address of your primary and secondary DNS servers into the text boxes labeled Primary Server and Secondary Server, respectively. Then click the Continue button to get to the summary screen shown in Figure 13, where you're given one last chance to back out.
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Contacting your Web hosting provider.
This screen summarizes the domain name, the primary and secondary DNS servers, and the technical contact for those servers. Click the Submit button and you're done. Within 48 hours, you and your users should be able to type your Web site's address into a browser and see your Web business. Of course, you'd better have started developing it! In my next article, we'll finally start looking at some Web business design issues.