DNS Troubles when trying to host site

Hi all,
I recently said I'd make a site for my mother (just a small family type thing) so she could put pictures up for friends and family living in different countries. So to begin with I read a few guides and all went well, I created the site (it's only 2 pages) and I signed up to a free host. My main page is called 'Index.html' as I read it was the best thing to do. I then called my second page 'Contactme.htm'. Anyway the problems start when I try to host it. I've signed up with Free Hostia and everything went well up until the point of trying to get the page online. In the sign up email I recieved I was told to 'Change the DNS' to what had been stated in the email. After watching countless self help videos on their site I'm still stuck and can't see anyway round this. Is the problem the way I've saved these files? I can post the HTML code if anyone needs to look at it. I really have no idea what I'm doing here and whether the problem is this so called 'DNS' or me not doing something crucial. Any help would be appreciated so much as I'm just going round in circles.

Thanks

Did you register a domain name of your own or are you using the host's domain name with a user or account name pre-pended or appended to the host's domain name?

archenemy
dns is domain name server. Suppose you bought your domain name from network solutions. At Network solutions you log in and are looking for something like domain settings. There you paste in IP like server address into a form.

What you're saying(more or less) is my domain name somesite.com should point to 12.34.56.78 which is the server at my host company.

Did you register a domain name of your own or are you using the host's domain name with a user or account name pre-pended or appended to the host's domain name?

I'm using a subdomain (atleast I think I am). I have my sites name, then the companies name and the .com part.


Thanks to you aswell FJBrian for the explanation of DNS

archenemy
dns is domain name server. Suppose you bought your domain name from network solutions. At Network solutions you log in and are looking for something like domain settings. There you paste in IP like server address into a form.

What you're saying(more or less) is my domain name somesite.com should point to 12.34.56.78 which is the server at my host company.

After reading over this a few times it finally dawned on me. Sites up and running and I can't thank you enough. :thumbsup:

glad to hear it
you're welcome
that's what is so great about these boards, everyone needs help and offers it. I see you're fairly new, hopefully you stick around