30 replies to this topic

[englishmen]

Hi all I'm thinking about building my own site(about what I don't now) but do not want to pay anything not at least yet anyway. Does anyone know a free web site hosting site with easy to use building tools.

Any tips of what I could do it about and tips and tricks for site building please post, cheers.

[Andavari]

My best tip would be to learn HTML. Don't want to buy a program for coding a webpage, then look into Mozilla Suite it has Composer. Can't always rely upon programs doing all the work for you, and don't use MS Publisher to create a site if you want to do complex things, etc., since it may not or won't display correctly in anything but Internet Explorer.

[Capman]

englishmen, on Jun 27 2005, 09:23 AM, said:

Hi all I'm thinking about building my own site(about what I don't now) but do not want to pay anything not at least yet anyway. Does anyone know a free web site hosting site with easy to use building tools.

Any tips of what I could do it about and tips and tricks for site building please post, cheers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I did not have a clue about site building until about 14 months ago, even though I have wanted to build a site for years. When I told my son I wanted to build one he gave me a quick lesson on building one with frontpage, and it took off from there.

I dont use frontpage anymore, I now use
NVU,
which has a built in code checker and builds sites to
W3C standards.

It does not quite do everything I want it to do, so I have to do some manual coding as well, which often means searching sites on the internet to find a particular feature I want and borrowing their code, but adapting it to suit myself.

I now have three sites online, another one in the making, and have revamped my companies website (although this is still offline as well).

As for webhosting,
GeoCities
is free, but I would not recommend it, there is a UK based company called
Heart Internet
who offer free hosting, dont know how good they are though.

Whatever you decide, Good Luck.

[englishmen]

Is the app you mentioned free because I don't really want to start spending £ just yet as I do not have a clue what I'm doing. Also if I build a site with that app you mentioned and other smiler ones is it possible to upload to a site which hosts free sites such as yahoo etc.

Also do you mined if you supply links to your sites so I can be nosy .

[Capman]

englishmen, on Jun 27 2005, 11:56 AM, said:

Is the app you mentioned free because I don't really want to start spending £ just yet as I do not have a clue what I'm doing. Also if I build a site with that app you mentioned and other smiler ones is it possible to upload to a site which hosts free sites such as yahoo etc.

Also do you mined if you supply links to your sites so I can be nosy .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

NVU is free, you can upload a site using
FileZilla
Which is also free, and you can upload to Yahoo, which is GeoCities.

Sorry, but I am not making my sites publicly known at the moment, but I will one day.

[englishmen]

Sorry about being a noob in site building but how does the uploading a site thing work. Am I right in thinking you make your site with a app then it supplies you with a load of stuff which you upload to your host?

[Andavari]

Since you'll most likely be using a free service they'll have tools you can use which offer a built-in site uploader. The uploader is similiar to, and as easy to use as uploading an image (avatar) to display on this forum. You can also update your site via FTP using Internet Explorer.

[Capman]

englishmen, on Jun 27 2005, 12:10 PM, said:

Sorry about being a noob in site building but how does the uploading a site thing work. Am I right in thinking you make your site with a app then it supplies you with a load of stuff which you upload to your host?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you build your site using NVU, you will get to the stage, where, for instance a basic 1 page site would end up with an html file, and any images that you want included on that page.
These would then need uploading to the place where you decide to have it hosted, and like Andavari said, some include an ftp feature, Yahoo Geocities does, and also like Andavari said it is the same principle as uploading an avatar on a forum.
Although using an ftp program like FileZilla is without a doubt quicker and easier.

Actually creating a site using NVU, is basically the same as creating a formatted Word document that includes text and pictures that are laid out in a specific way.

It really wont take you long to master, and once you have you will never look back and will wish you did it sooner.

The biggest problem with hosting somewhere such as Geocities is the serious lack of bandwidth, my main site is only 25Mb at the moment, (I have actually exceeded my Geocities upload space, and had to spread it over 3 geocities sites), and this means it can only be viewed a maximum of twice in an hour, (geocities bandwidth meters reset after an hour).

This is why I am not making it public at the moment, as I know friends and family are not going to make it exceed its bandwidth allocation.

If you need any more pointers then let me know and I will talk you through the various stages a bit at a time until it has gone live, after this you will not need any more help.

[englishmen]

Thanks for your help guys I will soon start building my site tho I don't know what about yet and if I have any further questions I will post them, thanks.

[DjLizard]

Do Wordpress, like me :>

[Eldmannen]

There are free webhosts but often what you get is what you pay for. The free ones often have banners, popups, frames, etc. But there are good free ones too without annoyance and that even provide PHP and MySQL support.

To learn HTML is always a good thing if you dont already know it. A good place is probably w3schools.com

If your webhost support PHP and MySQL you can get a existing website engine or script and run it on your website and you admin the site from the website.

If you code an own website, be sure to make that it validates and is correct HTML or even better XHTML. You can do this on validator.w3.org

Pick a good font that is easily readable, have a contact email address so visitors can get in touch with you. Dont ever use BMP's on a website.
Use PNG or JPG. GIF should be avoided.
Dont have too many images on your site, people come to your website for the content not for the fancy images.

Good idea might be to have a "Last updated at yyyy.mm.dd" so people know if the content/site is actual or old outdated.

[Capman]

Eldmannen, on Jun 30 2005, 12:45 PM, said:

Dont have too many images on your site, people come to your website for the content not for the fancy images.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hope he does not make a site for desktop wallpapers then.

[Eldmannen]

CaPMan, on Jun 30 2005, 02:49 PM, said:

Hope he does not make a site for desktop wallpapers then.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In that case, the desktop wallpapers are the content.
And ofcourse he can have images like that, what I meant was no need to have much images in part of the design.

[englishmen]

What makes you guys think my site is going to be a load of wallpapers? I do need ideas of what it could be about tho as I have not got a clue at the moment.

[Andavari]

englishmen, on Jul 1 2005, 01:52 AM, said:

I do need ideas of what it could be about tho as I have not got a clue at the moment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Auto racing, automobile, motorcycle, women in bikini's, etc.

[Eldmannen]

If you have news on the site then provide RSS feeds so people can syndicate the news with newsreaders.

Make a website about things you have passion for, or just a personal homepage. Example Tarus and DjLizard likes computer related things so they made computer related websites.

A popular trend is "blogging" you can get an account at www.blogger.com

[englishmen]

I'd thought i will start of with a blog and maybe create a complete site when i have learnt more about how to do it. Check my blog out here, only constructive comments welcome

[Capman]

I have had a look and looks OK so far, look forward to more content.

By the way Queen are doing a gig in Hyde Park this weekend and have allowed everyone from official services that helped in the 7/7 rescue's free access.

Good on you Queen.

[DjLizard]

Freddie

[Capman]

DjLizard, on Jul 14 2005, 01:03 AM, said:

Freddie

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, why do poofs make good singers, then die too soon.

No disrespect to poofs.

*edit*

Not sure who is going to front them.