Tech: Building a Website?

Subject: Tech: Building a Website?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 08 May 13 - 08:31 AM

What is the best way to build a website? There are dozens of free ones. Which one, if? Or pay for one? My ISP (Verizon) allows me a free one with a size limit. What about that one? Other ideas? Thanks.

Saul

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 08 May 13 - 08:58 AM

As you've phrased it, without any mention of what you want to achieve, it's a ridiculously impossible question to answer.

So, what are you trying to do? What sort of website do you want to make.

Give some indication, in as much detail as you can, and I'm sure you'll get some sound advice. Without that information however...

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 May 13 - 09:20 AM

Exactly. And how much space do you get? Putting in too much stuff makes it unusable, too little makes it useless, and bad design (e.g., black letters on red background or yellow on green) can make it unreadable.

If it's for family pictures and stuff like that, do you want it passworded or to share it with the world?

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 08 May 13 - 09:22 AM

I want to have a website that has "places" (pages?) that people with shared interests can "go" to interact with me and each other. Music (of course, and not just folk), bicycles, pipes, pens, politics, pictures/talk of their dogs, cats, and adorable younguns and so on. Perhaps I am describing a file cabinet of blogs?? I would want each section to be accessible only with a sign-in and password. Yeah, I do guess that info would help. :-/

Thanks for your help, Ed.

Saul

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 08 May 13 - 09:45 AM

Sounds as if you want to re-invent Facebook. What you describe really isn't for a novice.

There is a lot of software that will let you go part way there, but you may well find that your "free" hosting will not support it.
You will need to check the terms of service but my experience of hosting provided by an ISP is:
1. It locks you in to a potentially more expensive hosting contract
2. It isn't their main business so fixing problems is a low priority
3. They seldom permit password protected pages
4. They usually only support static html so you cannot upload the server side programs that would be needed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 08 May 13 - 10:02 AM

I use Startlogic. Costs around 100 bucks a year.

Unlimited storage, emails, and I think domain names.

Good 24/7 phone support.

Their file manager is a little bit clunky but not too bad. You can always use ftp if you have a lot of files to move.

Free bulletin board.

Their free shopping cart had limited number of items when I tried it a couple of years ago, but they may have a better one now, or you could write your own.

Build your website on your own machine first. Use plain html, avoid proprietary web building services and templates.

If you see a website that you like, you can use HtTrack to "borrow" it but it won't get any secial programming.

Take a look at myy website www.bertsolutions.com, feel free to use anything that you like from it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 08 May 13 - 10:36 AM

Google sites is free and with some tweaking you can do a lot - you could have a lot of them and just link them together.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 May 13 - 03:28 PM

Saul, before you start building a site, take a look at the free blogs you can set up via Wordpress and Blogger. You can choose a theme and add pages as you need. They are free, and have a generous allowance of storage space for images, forms, etc. You can host photos from other places and link to them to show in your blog, etc.

If you decide you want to get larger, or get a dedicated name to your site (without "Wordpress" in the address) then you can pay a modest fee a year. And there is another side to Wordpress, the .net area where you can find themes that download to a hosting site you have and run it with their blog software.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 May 13 - 11:50 PM

SRS, if you start a blog at Wordpress.com, how difficult is it to migrate it to your own URL and Website space?

I have a Website hosted at Network Solutions. It costs me $100 a year for a domain name and the space. Part of it is storage that I use for Mudcat music and other files, part for Jon Freeman's folkinfo.org, and part for a Wodrpress blog that I haven't done anything with. Mostly, I post files at my Website, and give people a download link elsewhere.

John Thompson used blogspot.com (which is now tied to Google's blogger.com) for his wonderful "Australian Folk Song a Day" project: http://ozfolksongaday.blogspot.com/. I have had Websites through my Internet providers, MSN and ATT. Both were very complicated to work with - and I suppose my main complaint was I could never find the damn things because the URLs were so complicated and kept changing.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 May 13 - 12:20 AM

i am too ignorant to advise but i have started one on google sites and find it easier to start up than wordpress...have no idea what i called it now.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: GUEST,SRD
Date: 09 May 13 - 05:03 PM

Telling you how to do it the best way is easy:- learn how to code in html, master css, javascript, flash, php and all the other add ons, purchase a domain name and a hosting package suitable to your needs, write your pages and upload them to the host. That may be overkill for a small site but I manage to run half a dozen small sites on that principle (although my knowledge of javascript is minimal and flash & php non-existent but there is a large amount of 'free' stuff out there one can comandeer).
Taking on one of the 'free' options means taking on their terms & conditions, that may suit you but can severely limit the uses to which you put the site. It will almost certainly mean that there will be adverts over which you have no control. It may be a good introduction to owning your own sites but, the chances are, in the long term it won't be sufficient.
I started with the 'free' space that my ISP offered as part of their package but as soon as I changed my ISP the site vanished, fortunately I had most of it backed up.
Alternatively you could pay someone to do it for you.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: gnu
Date: 09 May 13 - 05:33 PM

Sorry... didn't read the thread soooo.... Big Al Whittle has done a lot on this just lately and you should PM him. I'll look for his stuff on Face....

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: gnu
Date: 09 May 13 - 05:37 PM

Here's what Al MAY be going with.... http://www.webs.com/

I DO NOT SPEAK for Big AL.

Subject: RE: Tech: Building a Website?
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 09 May 13 - 05:40 PM

We did what SRD suggested above. Starting from nothing, we bought a book on HTML coding and created a website from scratch. It was uphill all the way but, in the end, we have more than one site and we can do practically anything we want. It's very satisfying to be in complete control.

Then, we ventured into WordPress. This is a totally different animal and it was uphill all the way as well. Wordpress is modular and open source meaning anyone can write modules for it. Usually they fit together seamlessly but not always. It's written in php which is quite different from HTML. Also, the Codex (help file) assumes you know a lot which we don't. On the other hand, it provides a number of very desirable features such as automatically indexing posts, providing a search function, letting us know when someone posts on our site, spam filtering and much more.

So, the bottom line for us was that it was a struggle learning how to build websites but very rewarding in the end. You should do it if you have the time and the inclination.

Bev and Jerry