Building Website

[Jason Solodow]

Does anyone have any ideas on some good books or guides to build a website? My family and friends keep telling their friends about what I do and they want to see samples of my work and learn about the woodturning process. Not to mention there have been several people giving me ideas of things they would like to buy from me if I could make them... SO, I want to put together a website with lots of pictures, and possibly a way for them to place orders, any ideas? I've already asked my friends who are computer geeks if they no one who could do it for me, but most of them want me to pay them anywhere from $200+ and I'm afraid I'm a little cheap for that.

As always, ideas and suggestions are appreciated.
Jason

[Frank Hagan]

I sent you a private message with some more detail, but in a more general way for the other readers, computer books are notoriously expensive. BUT, with HTML programming, you can often find books on the discount tables at your local bookstore that are $5 or $10 instead of $50.

And there are quite a few on-line resources as well. For HTML rules, see http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/, the closest thing to the governing body for HTML. There are free HTML editors out there too, and the one I currently like the best is HTML-Kit at http://www.chami.com/html-kit/.

For webspace, first check with your ISP to see if they include free webspace. If they do, see if they have "gallery software" available for it; "Coppermine" or "Gallery by Menalto" both allow you to upload pictures into categories ... and they are free. Some hosting companies have templates you can use, or you can learn HTML and build your own. Its not hard, but it can be time consuming!

[John Hart]

Jason, If you'd just like to open a store and have the capability of credit card purchases and stuff, I'd be happy to open one for you on my site. My site is designed to accomodate that sort of thing and you would be a great addition.

[Dennis Peacock]

Jason,

I think you'll find out that $200+ for someone to build you a web site is reasonable. I, like you was too cheap to spend the money to hire someone. So it was buy books on how to code html, find an editor for html, and sit with the books and start coding. I honestly believe that you will figure out on the 2nd or 3rd day of working on your web site that your time alone is worth more than $200+ .......ECommerce is another thing that can really cost you if you want to do it correctly. People's finances and information security should be of utmost interest to you and for their protection.

All of this can be done and done with as much or as little money as you can throw at it. Yes, you can do it yourself....just be ready to spend several hours in front of you computer instead of in the shop.

The good thing is....if you do it yourself? You'll have something else to put on your resume'. ;)

[Ken Kimbrell]

Does anyone have any ideas on some good books or guides to build a website? My family and friends keep telling their friends about what I do and they want to see samples of my work and learn about the woodturning process. Not to mention there have been several people giving me ideas of things they would like to buy from me if I could make them... SO, I want to put together a website with lots of pictures, and possibly a way for them to place orders, any ideas? I've already asked my friends who are computer geeks if they no one who could do it for me, but most of them want me to pay them anywhere from $200+ and I'm afraid I'm a little cheap for that.

As always, ideas and suggestions are appreciated.
Jason

Can’t say as I blame your ‘friends’ for wanting to make a buck or two, it dose take some time to do a web site, but there are cheaper and maybe easier ways if you check around a little and do some of the work yourself.
<O:p</O:p

If your ISP dose not give you free hosting there are many places on the web that do give free, or low cost hosting. I like to have a lot of control and none of the adds that are on some of the free sites, so I went with the paid variety, using a hosting company called “1 and 1” that cost me about $5.00 per month for my personal site and my 'name' (mykimbrell.com) and about $10.00 per month for my biz sites. (actually my son’s, but I administer them)

There are a lot of other hosting companies; you just have to shop for the features and cost that you want if you go with the ‘pay for’ style.
Many will give you free, or low cost software to use for building your site and some of the software packages are really easy to work with.

I use Microsoft FrontPage (2003) and like it a lot, of course it cost a ton but is super easy to use and will basically do the work for you… Once upon a time I knew how to write a little HTML, but now I just point & click.
Please note… If you don’t already have access to FrontPage you will need to wait until you settle on a hosting service before buying a copy because some servers DO NOT support ‘FrontPage extensions’ and you will only be able to upload you F/P pages & content if they DO support the F/P extensions. There are always workarounds for this kind of stuff, but if you are just starting of you need to keep it simple whenever possible.

A lot of the paid hosting companies also have ‘stores’ available so that all you do is start adding your content and products and that might be a way for you to go if you want to try and sell some of your output. <O:p

If I was doing a store the pre-made ones available at 1and1, or some of the other hosting services would be my choice because they are fast and easy to do and that leaves more time to spend in the shop.;)
The point that Dennis makes about security is of extreme importance, we see this stuff in the news all the time... all the more reason to go with a hosting company that offers help in that area, most pre-made stores that I have seen do so.

Hope this helps a little... it's like woodworking, always learning new stuff:eek:

Edit for a PS: Forgot to mention, pictures can kill a web page... I mean big time!!!
Over the years I have learned to be really careful about posting pictures to a web page because if you let them get too large in their 'screen' size, or 'file' size you run the risk of people getting tired of waiting for your page to load and if that happens on you store pages it adds up to a No-Sale!!!
If you get to the point of trying to build some pages and need some tips on this stuff send me an email and I'll send along the few things that I've learned, including some that were posted by folks right here on SMC... :)

[Frank Hagan]

Edit for a PS: Forgot to mention, pictures can kill a web page... I mean big time!!!
Over the years I have learned to be really careful about posting pictures to a web page because if you let them get too large in their 'screen' size, or 'file' size you run the risk of people getting tired of waiting for your page to load and if that happens on you store pages it adds up to a No-Sale!!!

Yep, this is true. People tend to post pictures of "high quality" when a monitor can only handle about 72 dpi anyway. There are quite a few programs that will resize a picture for you ... 400 x 300 pixels is usually a good size, as it fits monitors set at a resolution of 640 x 480, 800 x 600 or higher. Fookes Software has a free "thumbnail" maker that will resize your pictures at http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/index.php, and those with Windows XP can download a free utility from Microsoft in their PowerToys collection.

The other option to look at is the Yahoo, Ebay or Paypal shops.

[Aaron Koehl]

..but most of them want me to pay them anywhere from $200+ and I'm afraid I'm a little cheap for that.


CRINGE....

Remember it's not the fees and price of the investment in the website--what is most important is the value created for your business. A website is the most cost effective marketing tool available today--much cheaper than traditional forms of advertising.

[Jim Becker]

I have to agree with Aaron here. There is a big difference between a personal/hobby web site and a business web site. The latter has a lot riding on it and making sure it's "right" is worth a bit of investment. Poorly designed/implemented web sites can be a major turn off to prospective customers.

[Lee DeRaud]

I have to agree with Aaron here. There is a big difference between a personal/hobby web site and a business web site. The latter has a lot riding on it and making sure it's "right" is worth a bit of investment. Poorly designed/implemented web sites can be a major turn off to prospective customers.Another way of looking at it is, what are commercial site developers getting paid these days? I suspect that "$200+" number Jason mentioned works out to only about 4 hours of time. That may be enough to set up a "canned" Web site, but that's not something I'd want to base a business on.

[Aaron Koehl]

I have to agree with Aaron here. There is a big difference between a personal/hobby web site and a business web site. The latter has a lot riding on it and making sure it's "right" is worth a bit of investment. Poorly designed/implemented web sites can be a major turn off to prospective customers.

Right on.

If you really want to save money, purchase a pre-designed template, but don't skimp on the implementation. In other words, purchase a template and have it implemented by a professional. That will stil run you a few hundred dollars, but will save you hundreds in custom design work.

That's better than nothing, and will still give your website a more professional flare.

[Bob Stroman]

Right on.

If you really want to save money, purchase a pre-designed template, but don't skimp on the implementation. In other words, purchase a template and have it implemented by a professional. That will stil run you a few hundred dollars, but will save you hundreds in custom design work.

That's better than nothing, and will still give your website a more professional flare.
I'm a ASP.NET and C# developer. I can do a little HTML, but I don't have the graphical design skills to start from scratch. I could probably get by with a good graphical start such as a template. Where would I look to purchase a pre-designed template?

Of course, the cheapest way to get started is View/Source in Internet Explorer.

[Jim Becker]

Bob, the current generation of my site was developed from a CSS multi-column design that came with Macromedia Dreamweaver, which is what I use to do web work these days. I took the time to read a book on CSS and then modified that basic template to meet my own needs. With your programing skills, you should be able to do the same pretty effectively. A Google.com search should yield lots of sources for pre-defined site templates for FrontPage, Dreamweaver and so forth...some free, some not.

[Frank Hagan]

I'm a ASP.NET and C# developer. I can do a little HTML, but I don't have the graphical design skills to start from scratch. I could probably get by with a good graphical start such as a template. Where would I look to purchase a pre-designed template?

Of course, the cheapest way to get started is View/Source in Internet Explorer.

With your background, you may be frustrated with the canned templates. So many of them use flash animation, sliced images, frames, etc. I find all of that a major turn-off, and note that the most successful sites on the Internet use those kind of features sparingly (Amazon.com, Google, Yahoo, etc.)

Find a site you like and then adapt the code to your liking. I use CSS now and like tabbed interfaces and very clean pages ... PM me if you want a link to one of my sites that I like the most ... I will share the CSS file that will help you make sense of the "view source" information. You should have no problem learning how to make very nice HTML pages with CSS.

[Bill Arnold]

Jason,

If you haven't already decided on a provider, check the one I use. There's a link on my home page or click here:
https://www.ixwebhosting.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=barnold96
There are a number of nice templates and their customer service is good also.

They have several plans from which to choose.

[Jim Becker]

A good choice for hosting is Hampton Roads who donates the services for this forum site...

[Aaron Koehl]

Indeed, anyone who hosts a website with Hampton Roads Online is not only getting great service, a competent, attentive staff, and know-how; but they're directly supporting the operations of SawmillCreek. (www.hroads.net (http://www.hroads.net))

[Dario Octaviano]

Have you looked at webhost4life? http://www.webhost4life.com/

They charge $4.95 a month and heard a lot of good things about them, including customer service quality.

[Matt Meiser]

Indeed, anyone who hosts a website with Hampton Roads Online is not only getting great service, a competent, attentive staff, and know-how; but they're directly supporting the operations of SawmillCreek. (www.hroads.net (http://www.hroads.net))

Never even thought of HRO, but it doesn't look like you guys support ASP.NET?

[Aaron Koehl]

Never even thought of HRO, but it doesn't look like you guys support ASP.NET?

We don't run any Windows-based servers; never had enough business interest, and all of our custom work is written in php.

[Frank Hagan]

Does anyone have any ideas on some good books or guides to build a website? My family and friends keep telling their friends about what I do and they want to see samples of my work and learn about the woodturning process. Not to mention there have been several people giving me ideas of things they would like to buy from me if I could make them... SO, I want to put together a website with lots of pictures, and possibly a way for them to place orders, any ideas? I've already asked my friends who are computer geeks if they no one who could do it for me, but most of them want me to pay them anywhere from $200+ and I'm afraid I'm a little cheap for that.

As always, ideas and suggestions are appreciated.
Jason

Jason, I think this thread has gone far afield of your original intent, so I wanted to kind of redirect it a bit.

If you are looking for a heavy duty, business orientated site, with e-commerce functions, then none of the "shared hosting" suggestions given here are really appropriate. You should have your own server, fully managed unless you are willing to do that yourself. That's the high end of the scale, so figure on $200 plus a month.

But I took your message to mean you want what is really a personal site to showcase your work. The $4 a month plans fit into that category. Ecommerce is difficult on that type of site ... almost everyone wants to pay by credit card, so you have to decide to either go the Paypal route or another third party credit card service. You will have to pre-configure each product, and spend some time to get it set up the right way.

My recommendation is to forget about direct sales from your website, and provide contact information instead. Even some large companies do this ... take a look at how Suffolk Machinery sells their Timberwolf bandsaw blades at http://www.suffolkmachinery.com/ ... they do not let you order on line. You have to order by contacting them. I suspect you'll want that same kind of contact with your customers for custom woodworking projects.

If you simplify the requirements to be "showcase" instead of "showcase and sales", then you can get on-line much easier. A home page with a link to a gallery software would even work, and many hosts have free gallery software available as part of their package.

[Keith Outten]

You guys are breakin my heart.

Soon there won't be any American web hosting services left, they will all be overseas. I need an American technician who is willing to work for 50 cents per hour without benefits so I can be competitive.

The Creek will be totally dry in about twelve more months. Oh Well

[John Hart]

...
The Creek will be totally dry in about twelve more months. Oh Well

Well...Maybe. But then, things could take a good turn real soon too.:rolleyes:

[Frank Hagan]

You guys are breakin my heart.

Soon there won't be any American web hosting services left, they will all be overseas. I need an American technician who is willing to work for 50 cents per hour without benefits so I can be competitive.

The Creek will be totally dry in about twelve more months. Oh Well

Well, my web host is an American company, based in Missouri with servers from one of the larger data centers in Texas. There are a TON of American web hosts out there. Most won't design your site for you, though. They sell you space and bandwidth on the server.

Getting back to Jason's request for information on creating his own site, here are some links I have:

Beginner's HTML Sites:
HTML "Easy" Site: http://www.jmarshall.com/easy/html/
HTML "Barebones": http://www.werbach.com/barebones/
HTML Tips and Tricks: http://www.tips-tricks.com/
HTML 101 http://website101.com/


Free HTML editor:
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/support/

HTML "Official" Site (technical):
HTML Markup: http://www.w3.org/MarkUp/


CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) Forums:
CSS Creator Forums: http://www.csscreator.com/css-forum/
Webmaster World CSS Forums: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum83/

PHP Programming Pages:
phpBuilder (php programming): http://phpbuilder.com/
Webmonkey PHP: http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/programming/php/

[Aaron Koehl]

Well, my web host is an American company, based in Missouri with servers from one of the larger data centers in Texas. There are a TON of American web hosts out there. Most won't design your site for you, though. They sell you space and bandwidth on the server.


*sigh* I think you missed Keith's point..