talkmagic.co.uk

Hey gang,

Could one you techy types give me a hand?

I've been writing HTML for a good few years and as a Photography student have had to study multimedia for a few months and as a result, I am pretty competent in dreamweaver and flash is coming along nicely.

Anywhom, whilst all these skills have allowed me to theoretically create a website to free places like webs.com etc, I have no idea about the next step...the actual hosting and uploading etc to a proper website.

Is there any resources that could point me in the direction? I just need to know what the next logical step is to apply what I've learnt about the design side.

Thanks

Can you make websites that work on your computer?

If the answer to that is yes, your next logical step would be some cheap good quality shared hosting, and a domain name (such as talkmagic.co.uk). I recommend Aventure for both of these - they're real good and give you a control panel so that you can upload all the files nice and easy

If the answer is no, that's your next logical step



Edit: change url

Yeah they work well on my computer! Thanks a lot.

That host is in the US. You'd do better finding a good British host (if you are in Britain, that is) so you get better upload/download speeds and cheaper customer support.

I suggest you learn to use FTP to upload your site. Fireftp extension for Firefox is so noddy you could base an animated series on it. It is not hard. Once you enter the 3 bits of information needed into the connection details, you are presented with 2 boxes. 1 box shows a the files on your computer and the other box shows the files on the website computer. You just drag files from one to the other and hey presto, your files are online.

Also, don't re-invent the wheel. There are plenty of free pre-built website solution that can do a better job than straight HTML (you shouldn't be putting styling information in HTML... it's a defunct and bad habit).

One pre-built solution that is easy to get your head around once installed, is Wordpress (requires a web host that gives you mySQL and PHP access). While it is not the best, it is straight forward. It has an admin backend that gives you a lot of control over the content of the site. You only need to update the style.css file in order to customise the way the site looks. CSS is an art form in itself but using the existing css file a a guide, you should be able to alter it to suit your needs.

I'm glad to offer any support. Just drop me a PM with question.

DaveM wrote:That host is in the US. You'd do better finding a good British host (if you are in Britain, that is) so you get better upload/download speeds and cheaper customer support.

Oh god, I'm glad you said that - I got the wrong address. Edited previous post and fixed it. (The guys I use - the right url this time - are based in Ireland and customer service is top notch and included with your monthly bill)

I suggest you learn to use FTP to upload your site. Fireftp extension for Firefox is so noddy you could base an animated series on it. It is not hard. Once you enter the 3 bits of information needed into the connection details, you are presented with 2 boxes. 1 box shows a the files on your computer and the other box shows the files on the website computer. You just drag files from one to the other and hey presto, your files are online.

Agreed

Also, don't re-invent the wheel. There are plenty of free pre-built website solution that can do a better job than straight HTML (you shouldn't be putting styling information in HTML... it's a defunct and bad habit).

I normally write all my websites from scratch, but that's each to their own

I agree completely about styling in with html though

One pre-built solution that is easy to get your head around once installed, is Wordpress (requires a web host that gives you mySQL and PHP access). While it is not the best, it is straight forward. It has an admin backend that gives you a lot of control over the content of the site. You only need to update the style.css file in order to customise the way the site looks. CSS is an art form in itself but using the existing css file a a guide, you should be able to alter it to suit your needs.

Couldn't agree more - Wordpress is made of awesome

kolm wrote:I normally write all my websites from scratch, but that's each to their own

If it's my own site I wouldn't touch 3rd party a CMS with a barge pole but if its a site for someone else, time is money.

I've nearly got my own CMS finished so soon I'll be able to use it for customer sites.

Just to pester you too again...

This is all very frustrating...I have a fully working website with a flash gallery etc that really is looking nice.

So the two things I need now are a domain name, and somewhere to host the content.

Is it best to get the pair together from the same company? Adventure for example?

I'd like to do a yearly thing for convenience.

It doesn't really matter - you can get the two from whoever you want, just make sure you point the address to the hosting (your host will give you the details). I use the same provider for both because it's cheaper and I like their support, but for years beforehand I didn't

Although beware of some companies who don't really let you 'own' the domain name - this normally happens with companies who provide both. If you cancel/move your hosting, they'll keep hold of your domain name which you don't want (Aventure don't do this - quite a lot don't, just make sure you check first!)

Lenoir wrote:Is it best to get the pair together from the same company?

Definitely. You avoid a world of complication of the company that hosts your site also handles your domain name.
T.

webhostinguk.com

Been using them for years. £30 for a years server space on 10:1 sharing ratio so usually lots of bandwidth

We've had a good experience with 123-reg so far. Domain and hosting for a few quid a year. Lots of lovely stats. Nice. Web mail has dropped out for a few hours once or twice, but it's nothing serious and the status updates have always been kept up to date.

I use 34SP.com, based in Manchester. I've never had any problems, and they've always been very quick to reply to any questions.

Tomo wrote:We've had a good experience with 123-reg so far. Domain and hosting for a few quid a year. Lots of lovely stats. Nice. Web mail has dropped out for a few hours once or twice, but it's nothing serious and the status updates have always been kept up to date.

Yeah, 123-reg are very good. I used them for my domain names before and I've never had problems with them

I've nearly got my own CMS finished

I know about CSS - what's CMS?

My website are hosted with 1and1.co.uk
It's £2 a month a think - not much, and as before, they host the domain name, and let you transfer it out if you want to move.

CMS = Content Managment System.
Basically the guts of a site so you don't need to worry so much about coding. You just concentrate on looks and creating the content to put online.
Joomla is an example - there are others.