| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| Jonnyboy |
Personal websitesI used a basic freeserve template for setting my own website up, but would like to create something more professional.How do I learn what to do, are their any sites that I can visit for advice? Do I have to pay for a new domain name? Does anyone fancy writing an article on creating a simple website? 
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| judyofthewoods |
Do you want to continue with the 'what you see is what you get' type softwear, or do it from scratch with html? Leaning html is not that difficult, and you can use softwear which makes it easier still. I had a couple of days tuition from the local business initiative, which was a great help (and part of a deal for getting a small grant towards my computer) but there is loads of info in books and on the web. I started out with only notepad and my browser (free on the computer), but then got an html editor from the web, which makes life a lot easier, but you still have full controll over the design. You can get free trials (30 days) to see how you get on with it, and some will even let you download the trial repeatedly (I will pay for it when my finances recover  ), perhaps if you uninstall all the traces of it first when it runs out. My favourite is the html editor from www.coffeecup.com which has a quick preview, and also a WYSIWYG option in the same softwear. If you get it registered it its $49, but you can get free softwear if you use them as a host for your website (not checked the prices and conditions). In the editor the different code types are in different colours (you can pick them too), so they stand out and make editing soo much easier. It also has a tutorial. And so does 'Siteaid' from http://www.siteaid.com/ very similar to coffeecup, the free trial has x number of uses, i.e. when you have opened it for so many times, it self destructs. However, if you leave your computer in hybernation with the softwear open, then you get much longer out of it. To register its $30. I don't think it has a WYSIWYG option.
These websites are excelent for information on web building, softwear and design http://webmonkey.wired.com/webmonkey/reference/ http://www.marketing-magic.biz/resources/web-art-and-design-resources/graphics-tools-and-software.htm http://www.thefreesite.com/Free_Software/Graphics_freeware/ http://www.webstyleguide.com/process/index.html (this is very useful for design, whether you use html or WYSIWYG) http://www.freeware-download.com/ There are loads of hosts out there, and I wouldn't have a clue who is good, bad or ugly, but this one was recomended by my tutor, and it is one of the cheaper ones, and I am happy with them http://www.supanames.co.uk/ I only paid a few £ extra for the .com, the domain name was included, and you can check if your choice is available on the site (right hand side bar on above page) Hope this helps. Have fun. |
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| mrsnesbitt |
Jonny i am having a website done for me, obviouslywhich I am paying 60% of costs, Business Link are paying other 40% I try to keep people posted on the progress and get feedback too. | ||||
| jema |
Re: Personal websites
What do you want from a site. Once set up, a site like this can be hosted for £7 a month, and is very easy to run. No html required. But there are a lot of factors. I have recently realised that for small businesses like MrsN the simple few static pages approach might well be best. |
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| gavin |
An html editor I like and use a lot - and it's free http://www.evrsoft.com/1stpage2.shtml.
Looks daunting, but is very easy to use as a basic editor? Just a thought 
Good luck - Gavin |
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| Simon |
I recommend learning html and using notepad - but then I am old-fashioned. I like to know the ins and outs of things. WYSIWYG does not interest me in the least. I have created (and sold) alot of websites using good old windows notepad. | ||||
| judyofthewoods |
Gavin, that softwear looks real good, very similar the coffecup, and free! Will download it.
I agree Simon, its much better to learn html than use WYSIWYG, but an html editor alows you to do that with the convenience of a quick preview and the different colours for the code really makes it very easy to find your way around when you are editing. Although I have to say, that a lot of the time I find it quicker to write the code than find it in the list and drag it. If you are a one finger typist, it may be quicker from the list. If I do a qick repair on a page like a spelling mistake I discovered or a broken link, then I just open the source, but for any majour work, the editor is sooo much easier. Why not try it with that free one, have a look at the screen shot. You have all the controll as in the notepad. All it costs is 15MB of disc space. Believe me, it has really speeded up my work. |
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| Simon |
Thank you Judy for the encouragement .... I may give it a look over but I have used 'em in the past and am stuck in my ways. Besides, I do very little website work since we moved to France. Just my own "self-sufficiency" site now really. I used to use notepad, an explorer preview window (with the good old "F5" refresh key), and a color gif for colour reference- and just tab between 'em. Worked for me but I spent a long time learning the code first.
Each to their own. Try a bit of everything .... experiment and then settle with what suits you. (I do however stand corrected, source code is for me - but not for beginners) |
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| Simon |
If you do decide to pursue the HTML route then "the barebones guide to html" is well worth tracking down. That is where I started - all those years ago. I'm sure that there will be an updated version on there now. Search Google. Goodnight all! S | ||||
| Jonnyboy |
Thanks for all the useful advice people. much appreciated! | ||||
| alison |
Good question JB.
I have a simple site, but want to take over some of the running of it.( I have someone who does it for me) I want to have a diary type page, so I can update the animals and add local interest and events. Should I start again, or is this possible adding on to what I have already. |
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| jema |
That is the question  If you are prepared to pay a few hundred a year the sky is the limit, and you can have an easily updatable site like this. But that is quite a chunk of cash, but then the alternative is a fair bit of learning and harder work.
I am trying to get as much of a feeling as possible as I'm trying to set up a web design company, as to what is really best for people like you. |
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| judyofthewoods |
This is one idea how to incorporate a weblog on your page which you can update (with some learning about webdesign, as martin sais - but then I didn't know what html was before last November).
I just copied your source without the pictures, and inserted my own weblog without change, just to give an idea. You can write into it whatever you like. I'll keep this page on my server for a few days. www.judyofthewoods.net/devon_farm.html (now defunct) |
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| dougal |
Well - I'm not sure its completelysimple at the moment. There are quite a lot of different styles going on. (And some of them may not be working perfectly, yet. The top text, on the yellow background is left-aligned, not centred... if its supposed to be visible...) Your web browser should have a menu option to view the "source" of your pages. Go to one of your pages and take a look at its source. If thats the sort of stuff you really don't want to know about, let alone learn about then - - ignore anyone telling you to learn HTML and just use a text editor like Notepad!!! - get a web wizard to alter your existing site so that your single diary page is "included" - just learn how to "save as HTML" from a word processor and upload that new version of the "include" file to your web server's host. (Think of Judy's "log" as the main content of that page, which nevertheless has the standard framework of banners, logos, and navigation buttons.) And then you can type up a (deliberately) simply-formatted page for yourself anytime you care to - without disturbing the rest of the site. And if you cared to, you could learn some simple HTML so as to add photos too. HTML is just a system of "tags" (formatting commands) inserted into the text. Not rocket science, but potentially confusingly complicated. "Visual" web-page layout programs write out those tags for you. But sites purpose-designed for routine updating by unskilled individuals are generally complicated (under the bonnet) to make them simple for the update author! (They are often based around a database, and each news snippet is entered as a database record.) Hope I haven't scared you! |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
i quite agree with you there. i took a web design course that ended about a year ago... half way through the course they started trying to get us to use dreamweaver and some other html editors and i hated them! i was just as fast hand coding as most people with the editors, the trick is that when you code it yourself you'll find it's much easier to find your mistakes. if you don't really know html and use an editor you won't really know what to look for when there's an error if you see what i mean. about half the people that started relying in the editors failed the course at the end, they couldn't really remember everything because the editor was doing the work for them! there are some really good sites out there that will teach you enough html for a basic website, i'll have to have a good look around but i've got at least half a dozen i can recommend when i find them! |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
again i agree but do avoid html for dummies, it's worthless! it leaves out far too much stuff and gives you too much superfluous materials... my trainer for my course agreed with me that it wasn't very helpful for beginnners, it's more like a reference guide for the rusty
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
i've had a look at your source code, looks fairly simple but you'd need to bone up on some basic html, easily done online and with a few good books..later when i'm not so tired i'll dig out my massive book i bought off my trainer, it's brilliant and i'd recommend it to anyone... your site has a bit of javascript (not entirely necessary so it could be changed to html) once you get your head around tables that will be easy too... i'd say if you don't need any major changes and just want to update the text you'll not have problems. a lot of hand coding is cutting and pasting! when i was learning i always brought up the source code for another site that had exactly what i wanted to be on my page as far as layout etc (the images and text changes) then i'd cut and paste it into my document and then disect it... i'd change a bit, save, refresh and see how it affected my page... eventually i'd get all of their content out and all of mine in. then when i had my own pages down pat all i had to do to make changes to another page was look through the source codes of my own pages and again, cut/paste/adapt.. easy peasy. |
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| ButteryHOLsomeness |
just re-read my last post there and wanted to clarify that i only copied source code to learn, not to steal code... a lot of code out there is standard and used by a majority of websites and that's what i'm talking about....
by disecting code like this it makes it easier to see how it works and to spot your mistakes.... |
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| judyofthewoods |
I agree, I learnet a lot by studying other sites code and disecting it. Great when it all slots into place.
I think on the editor we may be talking about different things. The editor I am talking about is a glorified notepad, i.e. you still write your own html, or you can choose tags from a list and drag them onto the pad, but you still have to know html. It just makes it a lot easier when you can see the tags in colour code, e.g. table code could be pink, anchors red etc., so when you come to edit the html, you can skip through more easily, and at a glance you can see if you have forgotten to close a tag, as everything would show up in the wrong colour code. But you are still seing the same document as you would see on a notepad. Switching between the code page and the preview is also a lot quicker than switching between notepad and browser. The WYSIWYG editor will do all the tags hidden in the back ground. Coffecup has both options. The free trial would let you try out both options in the same programme, and has a tutrial. I have now downloaded 1st Page, and like it, its very similar to coffecup, but without the WYSIWYG editor, but free. |
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| Simon |
My point exactly ..... Thank you |
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| jema |
Couldn't agree more, and when an editor screws up a complex table, you may never manage to fix it in the editor  and if you have not learnt the html then you will be lost there too.
So just cut out the middle man 
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| alison |
Judy
That is exactly the sort of thing I am looking for. I am going to make this my next project, so none of you leave, I am going to need all the help I can get!! 
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