DynamIP installed (version v3.02 Final Release or newer).
	A Web server (HTTPD) running on your own computer. If you're on Windows95 you can download Microsoft's Personal Web Server for free! If you have MS FrontPage installed, you can obviously use the HTTPD that comes with it. And thanks to a healthy competition in this area there are many other servers available. A good place to check them out is Chris Wagner's SlaughterHouse at http://www.slaughterhouse.com/server.html. If you have WindowsNT you can obviously use the built-in services.
	A working DIPS account (DIPS - Dynamic IP Server) - DIPS is absolutely free and does exactly what we need to get WEBchat working!

1. If you don't have a DIPS account yet, connect to http://postmodem.com/dips-admin/ and get your own DIPS account (you may want to read the FAQ and some of the information available there to familiarize yourself with DIPS). Also, if you get your DIPS account now, you should have the password in your e-mail box by the time we need it.
2. Install and configure the Web server of your choice on your computer (all servers come with plenty of instructions and tips, so please don't send me e-mail if you can't get it to work - dump your questions on those who wrote the manuals...). If you have a choice, you should make sure that the Web server uses port 80 (this is the standard port for HTTPD). If your local HTTPD uses a port different from port 80 you should read the appropriate information about Non-Standard Ports to learn how to set up DynamIP. As for the root directory, the default settings should be ok. Just make yourself a note of the root path of your web as you will need this information later on. Note that the root path of your web is most likely not the same as the path of your Web server!!! The root path of your web points to the directory on your computer where the root page of your web (or the main page, e.g. index.html) resides, whereas the path of your Web server points to the location where you installed the Web server (the program).
3. Once you have your Web server installed, you should verify that it works correctly. Start your browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, ...) and load the page http://localhost/. If everything is configured properly this should load the root page of your web (note that some servers need a few additional configuration steps to have them load the default page automatically - until you've figured out those details you might have to load one of the following pages into your browser:
   - http://localhost/index.htm
   - http://localhost/index.html
   - http://localhost/default.htm
   - http://localhost/default.html
   - http://localhost/home.htm
   - http://localhost/home.html
   - ...
   If localhost doesn't work, you can also try to replace localhost with 127.0.0.1 (e.g. http://127.0.0.1/index.htm). For the rest of these instructions I will assume that your Web server is configured in such a way that the page index.html gets loaded automatically whenever you load the page http://localhost/ in your browser and the root path of your web is C:\WWW (that is the directory WWW on your C:\ drive).
4. Now we are going to set up DynamIP so that it "uploads" the WEBchat page to your local Web server. Start DynamIP and then choose the menu Setup|Uploader. Enter information into the various fields so that it matches the following display:

   Explanations:

   The entry in the field Remote Host is <!--skip--> and it tells DynamIP to skip uploading the file to the remote host (this is why you can leave empty the field Remote File).

   	The entries in Template ONline and Template OFFline assume that you installed DynamIP into the default directory. If you installed DynamIP into some other directory then you have to adapt these entries (use the file dialog box to select the template file DynamIP_.htm).
   	The entry in the field Local File is the root path of your web and the file name (if you don't have any other pages on your web, you can obviously have DynamIP create your default page - the entry would then be C:\WWW\index.html).
   	It doesn't matter whether the box Delete Remote File before Put is checked or not as the local upload engine will simply overwrite any existing file anyway because of the tag <!--skip--> in the field Remote Host.

5. Now you click the button "OK" and choose the menu File|Save Configuration to store these new settings.
6. Test whether all this works by choosing the menu File|ONline in DynamIP. If DynamIP doesn't generate the file DYNAMIP.HTM in your directory C:\WWW you might have to enable logging to find out what's wrong (Setup|Options and then click LOG Connection . Refer to the Uploader trouble-shooting section for help). Note that DynamIP will only generate this file if you're connected to the Net (i.e. online).
7. Now we are going to set up the DIPS client in DynamIP. You will need your DIPS password (the one that was e-mailed to you after you signed up for an account with DIPS). Start DynamIP and then choose the menu Setup|DIPS. The latest setup info for DIPS is always available at http://postmodem.com/dips-admin/ (they have screen shots there), so please refer to their page (things are still changing and I want to avoid having outdated information on this site...). Once you've entered all the information you click the button "OK" and then choose the menu File|Save Configuration to store these new settings.

Last modified: March 21, 1999
OFFLINE visitors since May 1, 1998