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Stupid Question 2 - Websites

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I want to make my own website both as part of my disclosure and as a way of communicating my research so that people can see what I am capable of despite my difficulties in communicating this in more traditional ways - presentations, seminars etc.

 

The trouble is - I have absolutely no idea how I would go about making a website/webpage (is there a difference?).

  1. Do I have to contact someone who does it for me or can I do it myself?
  2. Does it cost anything? If so how much?
  3. How do I actually start (really basic here please)?
  4. Can I control appearance etc. or do they come with set formats?
  5. Can I have two linked websites?
  6. What equipment other than my laptop do I need? Where do I get this from?
Edited by Mumble

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I want to make my own website both as part of my disclosure and as a way of communicating my research so that people can see what I am capable of despite my difficulties in communicating this in more traditional ways - presentations, seminars etc.

 

The trouble is - I have absolutely no idea how I would go about making a website/webpage (is there a difference?).

  1. Do I have to contact someone who does it for me or can I do it myself?
  2. Does it cost anything? If so how much?
  3. How do I actually start (really basic here please)?
  4. Can I control appearance etc. or do they come with set formats?
  5. Can I have two linked websites?
  6. What equipment other than my laptop do I need? Where do I get this from?

 

OK, this might be a slightly more complex answer!

 

You can do it yourself, or pay someone! How much you pay will depend on how good they are! As in everything (usually) if you pay more, you'll get a better result.

You'll need to pay for "hosting" (that is, somewhere for your website to live - on a server somewhere that the world can connect to). That shouldn't be too expensive unless your site receives many thousands of visits per month will people downloading lots of data. You'll probably want to buy a domain name too (such as www.mumblesplace.co.uk or something). If you choose a .co.uk name they are very cheap (abour �2 per year); .com names are more expensive (about �30 per year). There are lots of services selling domain names - PM me if you want some.

 

To start, you'll need a website design program. You can use Notepad but you're probabaly not ready for that yet. You can even use Microsoft Word but the results aren't that good.

Better is Microsoft Frontpage (web gurus will not like that - it's more "trendy" to use something like DreamWeaver but that's more complex and powerful). Frontpafe is pretty easy to use and would be a good place to start. There are some free versions but the name escapes me right now.

Some web hosts even have built-in editting packages with templates - these tend to be quite basic but might be all you need to begin with (again, I can give you examples).

 

You can control appearance as much as you like -it's your site, you do what you want! But best to follow some simple rules like making sure it's easy to read (avoid bright, busy backgrounds), use a simple, clear font (not Comic Sans - it's awful!), remember not everyone has a powerful computer so make sure people with small screens can read it clearly (800x600 resolution)

 

You can have as many sites/domains as you like, and you can link them by simply adding a line saying "Visit my other site here" and creating a hyperlink (when you get started that'll make more sense).

 

Other than the editting package (Frontpage or whatever) you don't need any equipement as such.

 

So, in summary. You'll need to spend money on:

Hosting

Domain Name

Frontpage (or similar)

 

...and that' it.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Phil

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Thanks Flipper and KateBall. That site looks useful KateBall - I hadn't figured out though that it would be an ongoing charge - I'd thought it would be a one-off fee.

 

The information is really useful and gives me a lot to think about - this is definately something I want to do, so I'll look further into it. Now to think of possible domain names . . .

 

Mumble :unsure:

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Are the freewebs that do it all for free any use or is there some major 'catch' to these? :unsure: Am I best to go for hosting that I pay a subscription for? I don't want to have any adverts on my site.

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You could use NVU. It isn't as powerful as Dreamweaver but it's free. Don't use Frontpage because it produces lousy code incompatible with some web browsers.

 

Modern websites are designed using XHTML with styling done using CSS.

 

Freeweb sites aren't that good because they are ruined by advertising and lack certain features that paid for sites have as standard.

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Thanks Canopus - NVu looks like it might be useful - I particularly like the bit about not needing technical skills - that's the category I fall into.

 

Modern websites are designed using XHTML with styling done using CSS.

Could you explain XHTML and CSS in really really simple terms please.

 

Hmm, the more I find out, the more I think I might be needing to get someone to help me (at least to start out).

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Thanks Canopus - NVu looks like it might be useful - I particularly like the bit about not needing technical skills - that's the category I fall into.

Could you explain XHTML and CSS in really really simple terms please.

 

Hmm, the more I find out, the more I think I might be needing to get someone to help me (at least to start out).

 

XHTML is the markup language used for designing web pages with. It is used for formatting text, inserting images and links, etc. but doesn't include facilities to style text such as making it italic or changing the font size. There is an older HTML that includes styling tags but it is now obsolete. CSS stands for cascaded style sheets and is a file that contains information about how text and other components of a website are styled.

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Hi Mumble (and Chris) -

 

If you want a fairly straigtforward site you may find that you Internet Provider offers you a limited amount of webspace (somewhere around 500Mb) free of charge... that should give you a few pages of text with a couple of banners, and if you wanted to include something like a photo gallery with big images you could just include 'links' to somewhere like photobucket. Either way, if you can access free webspace like this it's a good place to practice, and if later you find you really do need to go bigger you'll have the 500Mb bare bones site to ready for transfering over...

If you look at the 'my account' (or equiv) details on your ISP home page you should find details of any free space offered and how to access it.

I was planning on building a small site with ben a while back, but we haven't got round to it yet :rolleyes:

During the planning phase I found Kompozer, which is the 'latest' build of NVU (I think) for page design and upload. Looking at the forum pages for kompozer their 'upload' software can be a bit buggy with some ISP's, so most kompozer users use Filezilla (another freeware app) for the upload part of the task...

The following link will take you to kompozer's main site and you can find links there for their forum/help advice. There are all sorts of 'walkthroughs' and tutorials, and links to other sites where you can design stuff like banners etc for free... looking at the latter they were sometimes a bit ad heavy (so make sure you have your pop up blocker on) but between the ads they did the job. The kompozer site itself and the tutorials all seem fine from my brief perusal.

 

kompozerlinkyplinkything

 

Hope that helps - and if we ever get round to designing ours we'll see you in cyberspace!

 

L&P

 

BD :D

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I don't have an ISP... :(

 

How do you connect to the internet? Tiscali/AOL/Virgin/Whatever? That's your ISP. If you're connecting through a 'business' server or something like that (university) they may still offer free webspace... Dunno how it would work, but students who post online questionnaires etc as part of their studies must be getting them 'hosted' (?)

 

L&P

 

BD :D

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How do you connect to the internet?

Through the university. We have to contact some techie-guy if we want anything put up related to our studies.

 

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Hmm, the more I find out, the more I think I might be needing to get someone to help me (at least to start out).

Me too.

And to think when I first used a computer they didn't have monitors and you had to use a sort of machine code to get them to do anything and you got a printout to let you know what they were thinking. And they had their own air conditioned room to live in.

Edited by chris54

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Google websites are absolutely free and can be played around with quite easily. Very simple, even I can use it. All you need is a Google Mail account. Click on Sites on the drop-down More menu on google.co.uk

 

This is one for you to look at.

 

 

ETA: we also use the Documents facility - that lets us access our clent and professionals data from home or anywhere we need to.

Edited by call me jaded

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I want to make my own website both as part of my disclosure and as a way of communicating my research so that people can see what I am capable of despite my difficulties in communicating this in more traditional ways - presentations, seminars etc.

 

The trouble is - I have absolutely no idea how I would go about making a website/webpage (is there a difference?).

  1. Do I have to contact someone who does it for me or can I do it myself?
  2. Does it cost anything? If so how much?
  3. How do I actually start (really basic here please)?
  4. Can I control appearance etc. or do they come with set formats?
  5. Can I have two linked websites?
  6. What equipment other than my laptop do I need? Where do I get this from?

 

hi i can help you there. i run a website at first i used webs.com not upgrading as it was US money and i decided later on wanted to do more so i ended up using my own website using a website package called Mrsite takeaway website it doesnt cost much it came to £20-30 pounds on the blue one,professional costs a little bit more. but if you want to upgrade the mrsite takeaway website it would cost £60.00 and you would need to renew it after 395 days which would cost £10 to renew.

 

anyway you can buy mrsite from staples, pc world so on. i certainly recommend it if you want to pay it is easy and basic to use. and you get email address included with hosting where people can find the site through google

 

or use webs.com either or.

 

if you need any help please dont hesitate to contact me

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I just wanted to bump this one up and ask some related questions.

 

It's been about three years (oh dear, I have been here a long time... :rolleyes:) since I started this thread and I'm very aware that things change quickly technology wise, so I wanted to check that:

 

a. the advice given in this thread is still current?

b. whether there have been any developments and any better / easier options in the last 3 years?

 

I have come back to this as I now have the possibility of getting funding to set up a website for my research. Therefore, I want to do this professionally, so have ruled out the free options.

 

The main thing I need to know at the moment is costings to put in my funding application. I asked my fellow helpful students who were as, erm, 'helpful' as ever. :rolleyes::shame: They know less than me and I know nothing - but they agreed it was a good idea if I could do it! :thumbs:

 

Having gone back through the suggestions in this thread, I'm very taken by the Mr Site takeaway website approach as it contains everything and seems fairly easy, i.e. I don't need to know programming language - it also covers hosting, domain name and software all in one so I don't have to sort out lots of things. It isn't the cheapest option, but as I'm hoping to get funding, that's less of an issue.

 

Has anyone else here any experience of this or other similar packages? Would you recommend them? Is there any hidden cost / problem / difficulty that I'm not aware of that I should be?

 

Any help really appreciated - thanks. :D

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