Thread: Tell me about creating a website

I can help you I have built a few sites in my time

Originally Posted by Adam

I can help you I have built a few sites in my time

Cool! Thanks! I will come to you when I'm ready to get going. Thanks.

Can anyone tell me about the cost associated with this type of thing? Like, I have no clue. Seriously, you could tell me it costs 4 pennies or $3000 or a bag of cat hair and I would believe them all to be true.

Can I suggest you don't "go it alone" just yet
I think if you were to setup your own site, you wouldn't get much out of it

Instead, I highly suggest joining somewhere like DeviantArt
http://www.deviantart.com/

I think the "social networking" side of things would be really beneficial

DeviantArt is a huge online community of artists and graphic designers
Sign up and you'll get your own set of pages where you can upload your photos, people can comment on them, etc. etc.
It's even got an online store if you happen to want to offer products & services centred around your art

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deviantart

DeviantArt aims to provide a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. Works are organized in a comprehensive category structure, including photography, digital art, traditional art, literature, Flash, filmmaking, and skins for applications, among others, along with extensive downloadable resources such as tutorials and stock photography.

I think you'd get a lot out of DeviantArt

Incidentally, a lot of the original, core members of DreamViews came from DeviantArt - Aquanina springs to mind

Also, there are a lot of companies out there that headhunt DeviantArt members for artistic projects
With 8 million members, it's a huge market for artistic talent

Oh no, no. Like I said, I'm nowhere near close to being able to justify having my own website. I know that, I have no illusions about my photos. But I want to start working on getting to know what it involves. And even any info on how to create a website so I can pass on to my roommate so he can start learning would be great. He's a computer geek, so any computer talk stuff would be appreciated. We both need to start somewhere, right? I'm just planning ahead.

And I've actually checked out DeviantArt and have been meaning to sign up for a while. Thanks for the info on it though.

Do you think that is a more worthwhile place to post my stuff than on photoblog?

Originally Posted by kichu

Do you think that is a more worthwhile place to post my stuff than on photoblog?

Yes, I do
cause if you ask, you'll get a ton of constructive advice from other members at deviantart
seriously, get in contact with Aquanina on mortalmist (there were a number of other DeviantArt members on DV as well, but I forget who) and ask her advice

Re: setting up your own site

you'll need:

1) A web hosting account
basically, renting disk space in a data centre

purchase a web hosting account and you'll get a generic web address
Eg. www.bobs-web-hosting.com/kichu

You will have a certain amount of disk space allocated to you (say, 1Gb)

You will have FULL control over your hosting account
(this is in contrast to places like DeviantArt where you have no control the technical aspects of your pages)

2) An actual site
The hosting account gives you a web-accessable place to put things, now you have to actually need things to put on it

You can write your own site, from scratch
or you can use a content management system

Which you go for is up to you
for static websites (websites that don't use server-side scripting, databases or other content generation), I'd write it by hand

For dynamic websites (sites that change regularly - Eg. this site), I'd go for some kind of CMS package

writing your own site is technical (especially if you opt for dynamic content, rather than static), and can be very time consuming - but you can do ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING

Content Management Systems are software packages that automate a lot of the donkey work involved in writing a dynamic website
DV, for example, uses a forum package called vBulletin - it's a pre-packaged set of server-side scripts that interact with a database, and produce a dynamic web forum

3) Domain name (optional)
Professional websites, even though they may be hosted by a 3rd party hosting company, rarely use the address provided with the account

www.bobs-web-hosting.com/andys-antiques/
isn't very catchy

instead, Andy will probably opt to purchase his own domain name
www.andys-antiques.com

You then set it up, so that andys-antiques.com points to his hosting account

Wow, I was right about you! Thanks. Passing this on to the roommate immediately.

And I will hopefully create an account on DA this weekend.

You rock ynot!

I'd recommend something like Dreamweaver for designing the site. It allows you to switch between a design and code mode so that you can lessen the amount of html you have to learn.

It's just a matter of getting your hands on it... >_>

You can find a number of free tutorials to teach you how to use it. I took the liberty of finding a few.

http://www.educationonlineforcompute...imated-Lessons

http://www.thesitewizard.com/getting...mweaver1.shtml

http://www.haverford.edu/acc/docs/so...er/welcome.htm

I haven't read through these myself, so I can't tell you how good they are or how deep they go, but I'd assume they're basic and enough to get you started. You can, however, search more extensively and maybe find a better tutorial.

Good luck.

Ah, awesome. Thanks KF.

You guys rule.