Topic: Making a new Web Site

[kenkew]

I just kicked my old one in to touch after having so many problems with the people who oversee it. I'm thinking of setting up another one, nothing fancy but I'm not savvy enough to do it without using one of the 'helper' programmes. Anyone know an easy solution for creating a simple one whithout it costing a bomb and where I can advertise my home-made goodies?
Ta. Ken.

[springbok]

Hi Ken
I ran my business using Webkeeper.  Great designing built in program and you can have paypal or credit card payments etc.

Reasonably priced and really good support.  Used them for 2 years when I started out :)

http://www.webkeeper.co.uk/main/home

[kenkew]

Thanks, S'b...I'll have a look.
Ken.

[kenkew]

Looks a good one, but at £360 a year is a bit over my wood-carving budget... :-\

[Eristic]

Most hosting companies offer free basic web design software when you sign up with them. Otherwise, there is the much maligned Front Page Express that is usually tucked away on most Windows boxes.

I think you need to get clear what exactly you require as you may well not require the super extras that cost all the money. (If you are not selling on-line why buy a shopping cart?) etc..

Most of my development work is done in a souped up text editor called Quanta+ but that will be of no use unless you understand the code and can visualise the result in your mind.

What was the problem with the old site?

[cambourne7]

try coffee cup, i have used it in the past and its quite good and easy to use i got a email about a special offer this month which i will put below its got 5 days to go so you have time to get the demo and have a play with it.

Heres the info on the program http://www.coffeecup.com/designer/  there are also some free templates you can use http://www.coffeecup.com/designer/templates/

"CoffeeCup Visual Site Designer is a WYSIWYG Website Creator and Editor that helps you make Web pages with no experience or HTML knowledge.

Just drag and drop images or text on the page until you like what you see, and then upload to your Website. Visual Site Designer comes with over 50 Web Page Templates to start you off and you can make Websites with multiple pages, text-fields, graphics, animations and more. Create pages with your own images or use the built-in button and background creators to make every step a breeze."

----emailed offer-------

VisualSite Designer & Web Jukebox Super Deal
Valentine’s Day has come and gone – but we still have some sweet stuff to tell you about.

Curious? Well, first of all you will be happy to learn that we stuffed even more great features into the already powerful and easy-to-use Visual Site Designer! The newly added rounded corner boxes and 1-step flash embedding will really give your site that Web 2.0 feeling.

We want to make sure that everybody gets the chance to enjoy this cool software, so we created this outrageous offer:

Special Deal: Buy VisualSite Designer for $49 just $29 – and get Web Jukebox for Free – you save over $50! Wow!

Already have VisualSite Designer?
You can get Web Jukebox for free too. Just forward this email to your friends and if they order VisualSite Designer we’ll give you Web Jukebox. Just email Suzanne (suzieq@coffeecup.com) to let her know after your friend placed the order and she will add Web Jukebox to your account. How cool is that? :)

Hurry though, this deal will only be available for a very limited time. If you have not tried these programs, this is your chance. Call your friends, email your contacts, act now! VisualSite Designer and Web Jukebox together for only $29… this deal is almost too good to be true and won’t last long.

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About VisualSite Designer
VisualSite Designer is a Website Builder and Graphical Program in one! VisualSite Designer is the most powerful fully visual driven Website Designer, and the easiest and fastest way to create stunning looking Websites.

With the image creation tools you can draw your navigation menu’s, page lay-outs and content boxes in a snap. Adding effects like glow, drop shadow, and transparency is easy as apple pie. Mouse-Over buttons and effects, not the slightest problem. And the cool new features we just finished adding include:

New Meta-Tag Editing Options for improved SEO support
Improved link management
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Custom Doc-Types Options
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Impress your friends, get VisualSite Designer with Web Jukebox today!

Go Here to Order Now-https://cart.coffeecup.com/feb2008.php

[springbok]

Looks a good one, but at £360 a year is a bit over my wood-carving budget... :-\

Sorry Ken, I thought you were looking for a site where you could sell your goods  and design your site online :)

If you are after webdesign software, I have loads could burn to a disk and send it too you :)

If you are looking for hosting, http://www.123-reg.co.uk/   are another company I have used for years too.

[kenkew]

Lots to look and think about there, thanks.
 I finished with the other one because very few of my pic's loaded correctly. I asked their support people for advice and kept getting fobbed off and passed along. The price wasn't too bad, £65 a year plus £15 for the FTP side.
 I eventually did get some interactive pages working with my home-made crosswords and Soduko but Iwould also like the option to sell the occasional home-crafted item...usually my walking sticks. I did manage that on the other site - sometimes- but also had a problem of it accepting PayPal. I'm possibly part to blame but not for some of the things I didn't get which were supposed to be there.
 I'm not too worried about flash and all the extra tweaks offered, basically I'd like to place interactive games and have the option to sell a stick or two.

[Eristic]

The price wasn't too bad, £65 a year plus £15 for the FTP side.

At the risk of being cheeky which I'm sure you all realise is not my nature, I think I could give you a better hosting deal for less and give Dan a drink. You have probably lost your domain name though unless you can persuade the other site to unlock it and change the nameservers.

[kenkew]

Yes, it seems my old domain name is still locked. But what's in a name? A new one wouldn't be any detriment.

[kenkew]

I have a friend here in Belgium who owns a flooring covering business, wood). He's currently looking to do more biz on line. He's been talking to site builders but hasn't, so far as I know, found one he's happy with.
 ??

[euronerd]

I don't know which bit you are not savvy with ken, but as an exercise I set my site up in about 2000, just to see if I could do it, and how cheaply. I used the free space given to me by my ISP, a free text editor to help me with html (NoteTab Lite), UK2 (free, or nearly) as my host, and Smart FTP (free) to upload my stuff. I had to pay Nominet of course, and about £6 a year to keep my host from advertising themselves on it. My point is, most of it is about as difficult as posting a pic on here. You can 'borrow' bits of Javascript from other sites for special effects - you know, those damned snowflakes floating down our screens every Christmas. There must be somebody out there on the www who will sell you just the bits you want, i.e. receiving payments. I never had any success though in getting the site 'placed' and I gather that this is where the real cost lies.

I don't consider myself in any way computer-savvy. My only possible advantage might be that I'm so old that my first computer wouldn't do anything unless I wrote a program telling it what to do! ;D

Geoff.

[Eristic]

The hardest part of web page design is in making the content fit the full width of the screen in any screen size/resolution and to display reasonably well in any browser running on any operating system.

Already, far too many websites are merely padded blobs on my 19" monitor, and with 24" soon to be the standard, with 30" for the better off I shudder to think what they will look like.

[timiano]

I just kicked my old one in to touch after having so many problems with the people who oversee it. I'm thinking of setting up another one, nothing fancy but I'm not savvy enough to do it without using one of the 'helper' programmes. Anyone know an easy solution for creating a simple one whithout it costing a bomb and where I can advertise my home-made goodies?
Ta. Ken.

Why not start a blog? It'll give you a place to advertise your wares, and add a personal touch that most 'product' based websites usually miss.

They're dead easy to start off, quite customisable and you can register your own domain with it. It may sound a little cliché, but "Keep it real".

Tim

[kenkew]

I'm not a bollgger as yet, Tim, but looking at your professional layout I might be tempted to give it a try. It could be the best and cheapest answer too.
 Where do you upload photo's from? Do you need an on-line store like Photo-bucket or is there the possibility to upload direct? What are the restrictions regarding selling from a blog.
Ken.

[timiano]

Hi Ken

Thanks for the compliment. The layout I did was based on a free template that I downloaded. I only had to make a few changes to it, to get it to look how I wanted.

Photo sources are from two places. Photobucket for general images, and flickr if I'm blogging about an actual photo that I took that belongs in my Flickr account.

There aren't really any restrictions about selling/marketing from a blog. There are bits of code that you can drop in some of the sections, or widgets as they call them, that can link to e-commerce type engines. The blog itself doesn't have the functionality to setup an online shop though.

At it's simplest, and least hassle, you could use eBay as the backend selling engine, with links through to items from your blog. If eBay is not the image you are looking for, then there are online shopping facilities out there that will cost. I would say, don't get too hung up on ebay though. You want to be up and running selling, rather than concerning yourself with looking ultra-professional. As long as you're not using crazy fonts and colours, and paying attention to simple aesthetics, you'll be right.

If you want any help or tips, give me a shout.

Tim