How to start my own Website? Any help appreciated!

[JKMastalski]

I am looking into creating my own website that would be for budgeting, helpful hints, etc. etc. I haven't a clue as to how to start one up. If anyone could point me in the right direction as a starting point, that would be great!

 

[JudicialTyranny]

The first question would be do you want your own domain name or not? That is, do you want www.some-name-you-pick.com or do you not care?

If you don't care, check with your ISP to see if they offer free web hosting. For example, Comcast does if you have Comcast's internet service. Your URL would be http://home.comcast.net/~some-name-you-pick. AOL and other ISP's usually offer the same thing.

If you do want your own domain name, you want to sign up with a web hosting service. One that I have used is www.crystaltech.com, but there are others. They will set you up with an account and space and also register your domain name. Crystaltech can set you up with a site for as little as $2.95/month, plus $8.50/year for the domain name registration.

(I am not affiliated with Crystaltech in any way - I'm only mentioning them because I've used them. There are other services also.)

Once you get set up, I would recommend getting Microsoft FrontPage to create your web site.

If you want it to look really nice, do a web search on "FrontPage templates". You can find a few free templates or buy one that you like. (Look for templates, not themes - themes look amateurish in my opinion.)

The templates give you a starting point, with all of the menus and graphics all set up - all you need to do is fill in the words.

 

[JKMastalski]

Thanks for your help Judicial!
I will check into Crystaltech.com

 

[ducklite]

FRONTPAGE SUCKS.

First of all, if you are using your ISP as a web host provider, the chances of them having the "extensions" which run the server side scripts required to properly display the pages are installed are slim to none.

Every site developed in Frontpage looks the same. Boxy, clunky, and just generally bad GUI.

Additionally there often seems to be stability issues with servers with the extensions installed.

Get a real WYSIWYG web design program. I'd suggest Macromedia's Dreamweaver MX as a good place to start. If you are Photoshop savvy then Adobe's GoLive! is nice as well, but if you aren't Photoshop savvy it's a very difficult program to master.

I spent over ten years as a web designer, and have used all three of those products plus a bunch of others, so I have some expertise on this topic.

Anne

 

[JudicialTyranny]

Every site developed in Frontpage looks the same. Boxy, clunky, and just generally bad GUI.

When is the last time you used Frontpage? I'm not a devoted fan of Frontpage, but it works just fine for an amateur, especially one familiar with MS Office.

If you look at the templates available at a site like thetemplatestore.com, they have exactly the same templates for Frontpage as they do for Dreamweaver. Sites using one of those templates will look exactly the same regardless of what program you use.

Site using Frontpage template
Site using Dreamweaver template

Frontpage themes do suck. They all do look similar and are bad - but that's why I suggested using templates, not themes.

There's no need to respond to start a religous war over web design programs because I don't particularly care what program anyone uses or ends up using. It means nothing to me. But it's just false to say "all" sites developed in Frontpage look the same/bad. It's just not true.

 

[mickeysgal]

Subscribing - always wanted to know how to do this.

Are there any books on the subject that anyone recommends? How about that Web Design for Dummies? Is that good enough for a beginner?

 

[ducklite]

When is the last time you used Frontpage? I'm not a devoted fan of Frontpage, but it works just fine for an amateur, especially one familiar with MS Office.

A few months ago. I took on a freelance project to "fix" an existing web site a previous person had screwed up royally by trying to edit a site built in FP using Homesite. I'm sure you can imagine what happened. That's a huge problem, if you build it in FP you HAVE to edit it in FP--unless you are truly an expert in both HTML and FP and can work on it in notepad. In my case I had to use FP to "reinstall" the "Bots" into the code so the site would work properly again.

Also it's best if you can upload the site using FP's built-in FTP tool--otherwise you can run into synch issues. Very cumbersome if you ever want to make a quick fix and aren't at a computer with FP installed. If the site had been built in Dreamweaver, Homesite, GoLive!, or just word pad, you could FTP down the page you need to edit, edit the page in wordpad, and FTP it back up.

If you look at the templates available at a site like thetemplatestore.com, they have exactly the same templates for Frontpage as they do for Dreamweaver. Sites using one of those templates will look exactly the same regardless of what program you use.

I'm not a big fan of "canned" templates either. I design my own and build my own CSS to go with them.

There's no need to respond to start a religous war over web design programs because I don't particularly care what program anyone uses or ends up using. It means nothing to me. But it's just false to say "all" sites developed in Frontpage look the same/bad. It's just not true.

OK, take that out of the equation (although it's generally the case) and add in the server side scripts (bots )--it makes hosting/moving the site generally speaking a PITA.

Also if you want to add any kind of dynamic content it is usually not compatible with the FP extensions--what is trying to happen server side conflicts with what is trying to happen client side, and it becomes a kerfuffle. I don't like ANY program that won't allow you to add in your own scripts or dynamic content because it only wants to do things it's own way. Bad, bad, bad!

Anne

 

[ducklite]

Subscribing - always wanted to know how to do this.

Are there any books on the subject that anyone recommends? How about that Web Design for Dummies? Is that good enough for a beginner?

Look for books by Laura Lemay, published by SAMS. She seems to have the clearest, most easily understood without a MS in computer engineering, step-by-step books with good illustrations out there. Some might find them "too basic" but IMHO she's the best. I still have her original HTML book that's well over ten years old, which has a few odds and ends that were left out of her sunsequent HTML 4 book. If you do choose to go with FP, she's also got IMHO the very best FP book on the market.

This is a great book from her:



I like the SAMS books in general. If you are interested in quick start Photoshop, they've got a book that gives step-by-step full color illustrated instructions on how to perform about 120 of the most common PS tasks--it's a great quick reference for someone who's already got a basic knowlege of the tool.

I'm not a big fan of the "For Dummies" series. They seem to spend to much time joking around about irrelevent infomation instead of giving you what you really need. I also don't like the O'Reilly books, they are so dry they make my head hurt, and lack illustrations which IMHO are important for beginner-intermediate users.

Anne

 

[ktulu]

I prefer vi to edit my xhtml

I work for a network service provider and we have a subsidary that is a web hosting provider, all I can say is becareful with who you host with. I've heard many horror stories about people hosting with fly by night web hosting companies. If you're looking to do this as a business, then do some careful research

Just my .02.

darren

 

[Feralpeg]

I strongly recommend www.freewebs.com. It is so easy to use. I bought Dreamweaver and tried to create my own, but found it to be way more than I want or need. I've accomplished as much with www.freewebs.com in a week than I did with Dreamweaver in three months.