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So, starting a website
Organichu
poopspeesRegistered User regular
poopspeesRegistered User regular
I pretty much want a website.
I have an extremely rudimentary knowledge of this. I need server space, I need a domain name, and I need to upload things to it (and design it to a point). Right?
I don't need anything intricate (message board, shopping cart, etc.) I'd like to maybe blog, post some photos I've taken, things I've written, host some media. That's about it.
Realistically how long to acquire these basic skills (the design end, I mean... I like white space, clean lines)... and what are the associated costs?
I have an extremely rudimentary knowledge of this. I need server space, I need a domain name, and I need to upload things to it (and design it to a point). Right?
I don't need anything intricate (message board, shopping cart, etc.) I'd like to maybe blog, post some photos I've taken, things I've written, host some media. That's about it.
Realistically how long to acquire these basic skills (the design end, I mean... I like white space, clean lines)... and what are the associated costs?
Organichu on
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There was also a fair amount of Photoshopping involved, and a very (very) basic knowledge of graphic design, as in how to place page elements.
The costs vary wildly. For hosting you're looking at anywhere from $5/month up (I wouldn't say "the sky is the limit" on web host pricing, but it can certainly get very high). I pay $8/month for Hostgator and I'm happy with it for my level of traffic.
What is your goal with your website? If you just want a blog there are plenty of free services (BlogSpot, Wordpress, etc) that will toss you a pre-made template and let you blog away, including hosting pictures. That's a lot easier than learning how to code HTML and CSS. But it depends on your needs.
Ideally I'd like a webpage that is registered to my name (right now my full name with middle initial dot net seems available), and just to sort of make it my corner of the internet. Blogging, pictures I take, hosting some stuff, anything else that catches my fancy.
Or if you really want to dive in and make it truly your own, Google away and get started.
How much is the cost for a typical domain?
I have http://chris.to registered, a blog on Vox, my photos on Flickr (as good as free), I put my files on Dropbox, all glued together with a page on Tumblr. The only expense I have is the domain name and Flickr every two years, and it's great. They're all much better than if I cobbled together something myself.
Admittedly, I was a web programmer by trade, so I didn't really want to bring my work home with me, but I'd suggest this route unless you're desperate to learn.
I don't believe you :P
It depends if you want to learn html and css or if you can't be fussed.
Personally i think wordpress sounds ideal for you, there are plenty of decent plugins you get to be able to do swishy things with images. Its easy to configure, there are plenty of template styles out there so styling it up is a doddle if you don't want something 100% unique.
Can someone explain to me how this works?
To be fair it was a week I had off. And my first two sites were a lot worse than my (admittedly not great) game company's site.
Plus, I never said I was an expert :P Being able to do something doesn't mean you can do it well
AFAIK, Blogger has domain-mapping, which allows the blog to be hosted at blogspot and for it to use that domain for the blog. Tumblr certainly has domain-mapping, but I gave http://blog.chris.to to Tumblr, so I can still use http://chris.to to access my actual web hosting.
Vox doesn't do domain-mapping, much to my annoyance, so I just have http://alt.vg forward across to Vox. Flickr doesn't have mapping either, but I've never really felt the need to "own" my Flickr photos in the same way I want to own my blog. Flickr is big enough that it sort of carries it's own authority, and visitors know what features they're getting, where to find if it's CC licensed, that sort of thing.
I know i keep going on about wordpress, but its the one that i am the most familiar with.
They give you 2 options when you want to set up a blog. You can either set one up online through their site or if you want more control over what you are doing with the site, you can download all of the necessary files and upload / install them to your hosting space (you need database services installed).
I usually have gone for the second option as need has dictated, however the set up a blog at wordpress seems easy enough.
Back when I maintained my website, I had most of my fun seeing how radically I could change the look of it just by switching stylesheets.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Blogger doesn't even do domain mapping. You just give it the FTP details for your hosting and it publishes the blog to your own host. Well, maybe it does domain mapping too, but it can also just publish straight to your own host.
You still log into the control panel at blogger.com to post updates etc.
Apps like Wordpress can be installed on your host (so long as you have the necessary database installed - MySQL I think for Wordpress) and then you can log in at your own subdomain and it keeps everything contained right there on your host - blog and admin.
So, I was thinking, install Apache on there, get a web directory going, what would it take to buy a domain and have it point to my computer? So people could go to www.myawesomeserver.com or whatever and it would be the web/media server @ home.
Also, that way I could access my shit from anywhere.