 ArtMetalsocial networking for the metal arts |
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Designing your own website
Dal -
Friday, March 30, 2007 - 1:29pm
I am thinking of designing my own website, or hiring someone else to do this for me. Ideally I would do it myself and save money and learn a bit more about websites.  Please share your website
Dal -
Friday, March 30, 2007 - 2:03pm
Thanks a lot DR. It must have been hard work with FrontPage. You've pushed me to give it a good go with a PC. It'd be lovely to see your site, please try and provide us with the address.  Free & Open Source Software
visitor -
Friday, March 30, 2007 - 9:32pm
I'd highly recommend using (or at least trying!) free & open source software -- Nvu is a good place to start, as is Mozilla's Composer component. You'll want to work up your site template first, then copy that to a handful (or more) of pages that are linked together (about me/us, shop, work history, gallery, contact/contract, etc) ... if you're doing all static pages, you may end up with a slightly modified template for different areas of the site. Most of your work then will be maintaining the links between pages. You can view the pages locally in a browser, if all the links are [what they call] relative -- image links will be direct (not a full path or a URL, just direct or with say in an images/ subdirectory). To get started with a website, you'll need a domain name, which you purchase from a registrar (DNS service provider). GoDaddy.com is a big registrar, you can almost always find 10% coupon codes for them too. For web hosting, I suggest a good but cheap service, should be less than $100 (USD) per year. If you have DSL you can prolly host it yourself, if you have a computer on all the time. The more recent hosting packages have a ton of space & features, look for something called Fantastico, which helps install free & open source software on the server for you, and you can get away from the hassle of maintaining static pages. WordPress is a great blogging software, and if you need a really full-features site, look at Drupal. Some of the CMS (Content Management Systems, server-side web software, similar to Gallery, ZenCart, WordPress, etc, but having more features) have great site builders, but I'd avoid using the "site builders" that come from the hosting service provider.... the differentiation is difficult to describe without getting far more technical. I have been doing art metal for about a year and a half, but computers for ~20 years, and am currently also available for contract -- can train and help folks get started with this sort of DIY approach if you want. I help out a lot of folks in my local community and make my money doing it for small businesses. :) best regards, Ben Barrett web site software
visitor -
Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 6:45am
Try a software called GO Live, along with photoshop and Adobe or talk with my brother, Mbryant@sonic.net he designs sites Thanks
Dal -
Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 7:38am
Dear Visitor, GoLive/DreamWeaver and FrontPage
visitor -
Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 8:47pm
I left a substantial comment and nothing was approved. I am subscribed, so apparently I don't understand this forum. GoLive is a scaled-down version of DreamWeaver, if I remember correctly. They are MacroMedia's answer to Microsoft's older FrontPage -- all of which are designed for non-technical people to publish websites. There are a lot of free alternatives, which are surprisingly easy to use with complete help systems, templates, etc, which I suggested in my other comment, such as "Nvu". Even using OpenOffice, you can save as HTML. Try some things out and get familiar with the common processes. There is also a free program that is much like Photoshop, called The Gimp (gnu image manipulation program) -- these things are not ripoffs, and they do not contain spyware like much "free software". They are Open Source, which means they are created & maintained by a helpful internet community... Please allow this comment, or else I'll be certain that the moderators are taking cuts from commercial software vendors. ;^> best regards, PS - I don't "do" websites but train people and do backend web systems (databases and servers) myself, which is why I thought I got moderated out... but there is the brother's email there. Mine is ben.barrett@elevensegrity.com -- I'm serious about ArtMetal and am not spamming here, just offering what I know to be helpful. Eh?  Yes, your comment did get
webminster -
Tuesday, April 3, 2007 - 12:27pm
Yes, your comment did get caught in our aksimet spam filter. But I pulled it out, approved it, and submitted it as ham. Maybe we won't see this type of information being considered as spam in the future. Thank you for your contribution to this discussion! Very helpful
Dal -
Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - 1:13pm
Thanks alot for your help, this software sounds great and I'm trying to get to grips with the software. Thanks again for your post, very helpful. |
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ArtMetal
Website design
Several years ago I wanted to put out a website of my work. I am a photographer. I checked and it was going to cost me about $6,000.00 (American dollars)to have this done the way I wanted it. I bought Microsoft Front Page and started reading the manual and designed my own website one page at a time. I did all of this on a PC. I found an ISP (Internet Server Provider) and signed up for a year and down loaded everything to him and it has been on ever since. The yearly cost for having it on the net is minimal. Designing it would have been the expensive part. But all it cost me was the price of the software and a lot of learning. It was a good experience and I was proud of what I did. It has now been on the internet for about five years and it is my best advertising I have ever had. It is still very current with what I do.
I hope this has helped you.
DR