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ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Website creation - advice please (1 Viewer)

Hi Mike,

if you can get php and MySQL for free, I'm sure we'd all be grateful for a hint...

And as for the site usage and purpose - I've already mentioned elsewhere on this thread that the kind of advice we can give would depend precisely on what the intention is for the site.

While I don't disagree for a second that if someone wants small and easy the Supanames option is overkill (and this is exactly why I've already mentioned using existing space provided by the ISP, and using non php/database solutions like Metateque and Open Office - all of which are as free as it gets) you'll notice that so far nobody has actually said what their aims are for the sites they're interested in setting up so I've covered the options.

Besides - Tom's question was simple enough: is Value Host Pro a good deal?

The answer is unequivocally "yes": whether it's more than you might want to go for doesn't change that.
 
I run 28 websites (five commercial ones that receive over 500K hits a year!) I use Dreamweaver to write / edit them, Paintshop Pro and Irfanview (which is freeware!) to edit the graphics and WS-FTP to send them up (Also freeware!)
I use my ISP's free webspace: Wanadoo lets you pick some pretty on-the-money domain names
(For example, my meteorite site is:
http://www.space-rocks.wanadoo.co.uk/ )
For some of my sites I buy redirection from Easily.co.uk
www.collect-space.co.uk
Any help I can give, don't hesitate to send a pm!
 
I hazard to mention my website as it hasn't been updated in a couple of years - though watch this space as it's being revamped.

I'm with Ntlworld so I just use the free web space they provide. The site was designed oiginally with a Serif product - Webplus - which is very simple and easy to use and only costs a few pounds.
 
Or for a very basic FREE starter site I use Site Builder by wanadoo.....
Not the best but hey its Free... :bounce:
see my link below
 
I've not used it yet, but since Frontpage has a "Publish web" option in the file menu, does that mean its got its own built-in FTP?
 
Hi Jason,

yep that's right - if you're using FP, you've got a built-in FTP client.

Dreamwaver has a similar option among its site management tools, but - although I use DW at work, personally I still prefer the php script/database approach to site creation and update - even for my own little blog.

Bonjour Clouseau,

I use WS-FTP LE (the free one) too, but maan! it's hard to find to download.

I'm a big fan of Irfanview myself, but I do wish I could work out how to make it save images as small (in kb) as the likes of PSP.

Another really capable free graphics package is Photofiltre - not quite as "bells and whistles" as The Gimp (proably the heaviest-hitting image manipulation package in the open source/freeware world), but arguably a damn' site more usable.
 
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Mr Limeybirder,

What do you want to accomplish by having a website? Do you want to share pictures? Show your videos? Do you have an inventory of something to sell? Paintings? Beautiful bird pictures nicely framed and matted? What do you want?

The reason i ask this question is that there are many levels of what you could call a web presence. How you proceed depends on your vision. What do you see as your website? Is it a commerce kind of place like amazon? An artsy/birdy kind of place? A newsy chatty interactive kind of thing? do you have to have something to say or share or sell? Is it a simple homepage or blog? What do have in mind?

Your vision has to be clear. You have to know before you start what you want to see. Otherwise you will spend a lot of money and time on stuff you will not need. You could start your planning by getting a few sheets of paper and sketching out what the page or pages look like. There is a welcome page. What does that look like? What color is it? There are tabs that go to links that go to who knows where. Are they on the top? the left? the right? Do you see links to other sites? Do you want to try to make money?

It's kind of like building a house. You start with the plans. First you draw. After you spend some time on that you will know how simple or complicated your intentions are.

At this very moment I am doing the same thing. I asked a friend of mine who is in the business of web design how to do it and this is what he told me to do. I have signed up for tutoring on the subject but he won't see me until I have my "plans."
 
Yep. Just like a database. Design it first; construct it afterwards (says he, struggling with a prospective site).
 
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All sound advice! But remember Occam's Razor: simplest is best! I personally dislike websites loaded with Shockwave and Flash: I prefer those that you can navigate through easily like reading a book... like THIS one!
And it's wise to remember that not everyone has Win XP and/or broadband. If a site takes more than a couple of seconds to download (usually because it's graphics or flash heavy!) I can't be bothered to wait!
 
Web sites

Clouseau said:
All sound advice! But remember Occam's Razor: simplest is best! I personally dislike websites loaded with Shockwave and Flash: I prefer those that you can navigate through easily like reading a book... like THIS one!
And it's wise to remember that not everyone has Win XP and/or broadband. If a site takes more than a couple of seconds to download (usually because it's graphics or flash heavy!) I can't be bothered to wait!
Click to expand...


Yup! - you're dead right - keep it simple stupid! Oh and FREEEEEEE!!!!

madmike
 
Clouseau said:
All sound advice! But remember Occam's Razor: simplest is best! I personally dislike websites loaded with Shockwave and Flash: I prefer those that you can navigate through easily like reading a book... like THIS one!
And it's wise to remember that not everyone has Win XP and/or broadband. If a site takes more than a couple of seconds to download (usually because it's graphics or flash heavy!) I can't be bothered to wait!
Click to expand...
Agreed 100%, my pet hate is sites that have a "Welcome page" that tells you nothing, festooned with silly graphics and an enter button, I don't normally bother.

Mick
 
Aye - no Flash, no animated gifs, and no rollover graphic links.

In fact - as L'Inspecteur says - this site is a fine model for what engages visitors: nothing fancy (which I mean in a good way), easy navigation using (D)HTML for the links , and good content.

Can't do this for nowt, of course - or without a database, php and huge amounts of space...
 
Clouseau said:
All sound advice! But remember Occam's Razor: simplest is best!
Click to expand...
That's precisely why I'm such a fan of creating sites the HTML of which is generated by php scripts: you only need set them up once, then everything that follows is clean, simple, compliant HTML without the need for any unnecessary clutter and nonsense.

Trust me, it's the future... ;)
 
Just to clarify....

FTP is a transfer protocol... all it is is a different way to transfer files. All modern browsers can cope with ftp. A great standalone ftp client is smartftp ( http://www.smartftp.com/ ) if you need one. It's a little quicker than HTTP for files, that's why it's used.

Also you can write decent web pages with a very rudimentry knowledge of html. There are loads of tutorials online, and you can write in notepad, and view in IE immediately if you wish. HTML is pretty easy to get in to, if you want to. If you don't other services are easier to whack up a page quickly.
 
This one is generated using vast amounts of PHP - thousands of lines of code.

And no, I didn't write them all :D

Just to put things into perspective, this website uses about 12 Gigs of disk space (of which about 4 gigs are gallery photos, and 3 gigs are the forum and it's attachments) and uses about 110 gigs of bandwidth per month... :eek!:
 
Hi Clouseau,

pretty much any website run by a large organisation is going to be script-driven these days: the BBC, Met Office, RSPB, BTO, DWP (which I have had an occasional hand in) - you name it, it's going to run off scripts.

One of the main reasons for this is people with no knowledge of, or experience in, website creation can actively contribute content and update the site without needing to get their "pet techy" to create the HTML around the content and upload the material.

Instead, they can input content to the site in much the same way we post here, which as Ollie says, is as good an example of the benefits of the scripted approach as any: and it also allows for a level of visitor interactivity entirely denied visitors to static, "hand built" pages.

I've got several sites on the go - for example I use a blog script called Textpattern for my own blog www.kazemisu.me.uk: it might not be much to look at in itself, but I love the idea that - no matter where I am - as long as I can get to a computer with internet access I can update or maintain the site if I get the urge, simply by typing into a textarea box, and all the formatting and navigation requirements are sorted out by the underlying code...
 
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