OT: Need a website

[EricWatkins]

Could someone point me in a direction for building my own website for promoting my composing business. I just really dont have the money to throw at someone to do it for me as I am in the middle of remodeling my studio (also on my own) and of course, filling it with goodies. I am currently PC based and will always have one around even if I do change to a MAC (inevitable) for my DAW. I just need to know of a decent software to learn and develop a website. I admit that I dont know what I'm doing yet but I WILL learn and get this done. And then I of course need a service to host my site. Money IS an object but I also realize that it takes what it takes. I want to develop a site that has graphics with a decent player on it to host my demo music and be able to easily manipulate it as I need to. Thanks guys. I know there are people here that know all about this stuff. Thanks.

[Steve_Karl]

I've been doing site work for probably 6 or 8 yrs. Even if I was starting out from scratch I'd ( personally ) not want to deal with anything less than Dreamweaver 4. ( Version 3 is OK also )
If you could get a good deal on that somewhere, maybe eBay, I'd highly recommend it as an HTML tool. ( see below for ftp )
However, "Coffee Cup" has a free version. I messed with it once quite a few yrs. ago and / but ... it was nearly as annoying as Front Page. I suppose one could get used to "Coffee Cup" and get good results.
There might be other free WYSIWYG HTML editors out there.
Google is your friend!

"WS_FTP" is a rock solid tank of an FTP program and I believe you can still find a free version.

For hosting I use www.webhost4life.com (http://www.webhost4life.com) and so do about 8 of my clients.
Once you get past the initial configuration ( actually getting the emails ... I think their administration has moved to Asian outsourcing ) it's a breeze.

For a domain registrar I use www.register.com (http://www.register.com) Their control panel is very easy to use and even though they're $35.00 / yr. ( I'm sure you could find someone cheaper ) It's worth it to me to have the fast and reliable phone support and user control panel.

[Little Red King]

If you are ready to invest some time, then you don't need any software for website development other than a very basic text editor. When I was learning html and css, I found these sites useful:

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/tut/lessons.html

http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp

http://www.w3schools.com/css/

http://www.pageresource.com/dhtml/cssprops.htm

http://www.echoecho.com/htmlbasics.htm

http://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp

This info was enough to get me started and maybe it could help you? This is not going to be enough to write mega-flashy web pages, but one will be able to produce something that looks nice and professional if one is willing to invest the time in learning html and css. If you've ever programmed before or used word processors in the late 70's or 80's (troff anyone? :) ) then html will already be familiar.

As an FTP tool, I find that the free extension, FireFTP, which is part of Firefox is easy and works well.

[EricWatkins]

Is there any shame in using one of these sites that sort of does it all like

http://www.web.com/website-hosting-2/?refcd=MS879705634e_website_design&tsacr=MS16322192

or

https://www.register.com/product/website.rcmx?SEMMSN=MSN

or

http://www.webpiston.com/ ?

Now that I've looked around a bit, maybe this is just more my speed.

[Leaf]

I've been doing site work for probably 6 or 8 yrs. Even if I was starting out from scratch I'd ( personally ) not want to deal with anything less than Dreamweaver 4. ( Version 3 is OK also )
If you could get a good deal on that somewhere, maybe eBay, I'd highly recommend it as an HTML tool. ( see below for ftp )
However, "Coffee Cup" has a free version. I messed with it once quite a few yrs. ago and / but ... it was nearly as annoying as Front Page. I suppose one could get used to "Coffee Cup" and get good results.
There might be other free WYSIWYG HTML editors out there.
Google is your friend!

"WS_FTP" is a rock solid tank of an FTP program and I believe you can still find a free version.

For hosting I use www.webhost4life.com (http://www.webhost4life.com) and so do about 8 of my clients.
Once you get past the initial configuration ( actually getting the emails ... I think their administration has moved to Asian outsourcing ) it's a breeze.

For a domain registrar I use www.register.com (http://www.register.com) Their control panel is very easy to use and even though they're $35.00 / yr. ( I'm sure you could find someone cheaper ) It's worth it to me to have the fast and reliable phone support and user control panel.There is a question below i hope you can answer. I have asked this to a half a dozen different IT specializing lawyers and they for some reason refuse to answer this question. Which makes me think, "hmmm..."

When you pay this service or some other service like it, are you actually paying a middleman who is hijacking the trademark or copyright of your new domain name, and charging you for something that if you knew how, you could have registererd yourself and own the rights to the domain name yourself?

[JT3_Jon]

If you do plan on switching to a mac, each mac comes with a FREE and extremely intuitive website building software called "iweb." I HIGHLY recommend iweb as its dead simple to use and produces AMAZING results! Here is an example of a family business my father started using only iweb and photoshop.

http://www.noblepirate.com/Home.html

As for a "player," quicktime works fine. You can also take the time to learn Flash, which has its own player built in as well, but I hear its not the easiest program to learn.

I seriously would take a trip to your local apple store and play around with iweb on their demo machines. Trust me, within 5min you will be hooked!!

[Steve_Karl]

There is a question below i hope you can answer. I have asked this to a half a dozen different IT specializing lawyers and they for some reason refuse to answer this question. Which makes me think, "hmmm..."

When you pay this service or some other service like it, are you actually paying a middleman who is hijacking the trademark or copyright of your new domain name, and if you knew how you could have registererd yourself and own the rights to the domain name yourself?

I think it depends on the company you use as a registrar. I'm sure there are some out there that are just renting you then name and they actually own it, but I happen to know for sure that I own mine, to the point that I can transfer the registration to a different registrar.

Yea. I know the whole thing still reeks of buzzards and carrion crows ... and we should be able to do it ourselves, going directly to the source ... i.e. if the source was actually willing to deal with the public without the "secret hand shake" of the middle man.

[Steve_Karl]

If you do plan on switching to a mac, each mac comes with a FREE and extremely intuitive website building software called "iweb." I HIGHLY recommend iweb as its dead simple to use and produces AMAZING results! Here is an example of a family business my father started using only iweb and photoshop.

http://www.noblepirate.com/Home.html

As for a "player," quicktime works fine. You can also take the time to learn Flash, which has its own player built in as well, but I hear its not the easiest program to learn.

I seriously would take a trip to your local apple store and play around with iweb on their demo machines. Trust me, within 5min you will be hooked!!

If he's using photoshop he'd probably get a lot more speed of loading of his site by optimizing his images and using .jpg instead of .png.
Jump the .png files to Image Ready and then optimize them as .jpg and you'll probably trim a lot of fat off the site. You'll never "see" the difference in the quality of the images, but the file sizes will be notably smaller and the site will load a lot faster.

It looks nice, but as it sits now, it loads up really slow and feels really glitchy.
Most likely because of the image files.

Quick Time is probably great on a MAC, but in my opinion it sucks big time on a PC.

[Schmandie]

Hi Eric,

I was considering similar issues when it came down to my own website.

My choice is: www.ezgenerator.com

- easy to setup
- a bunch of templates to choose from
- easy to customize templates
- very good support in case of problems
- a lof of free online-tutorials
- covers all important features that current websites should include (anyway you need a server that supports PHP)
- costs 130 USD (I think that´s a very good price)

Best

Schmandie

[sghoughton]

I would second the ezgenerator recommendation

I've used it on 3 of my own sites so far (www.stevehoughton.com (http://www.stevehoughton.com) with links to the other two from there) and its excellent.

There are thousands of templates - you pick one you like and go with it. THen you can cusomize that look by putting in your own graphics and you're done.


Hi Eric,

I was considering similar issues when it came down to my own website.

My choice is: www.ezgenerator.com (http://www.ezgenerator.com)

- easy to setup
- a bunch of templates to choose from
- easy to customize templates
- very good support in case of problems
- a lof of free online-tutorials
- covers all important features that current websites should include (anyway you need a server that supports PHP)
- costs 130 USD (I think that´s a very good price)

Best

Schmandie

[Leaf]

I think it depends on the company you use as a registrar. I'm sure there are some out there that are just renting you then name and they actually own it, but I happen to know for sure that I own mine, to the point that I can transfer the registration to a different registrar.

Yea. I know the whole thing still reeks of buzzards and carrion crows ... and we should be able to do it ourselves, going directly to the source ... i.e. if the source was actually willing to deal with the public without the "secret hand shake" of the middle man.Thanks for the answer Steve. I'll use them unless i find a way to directly register, that was my main concern, who actually has ownership.

David

[ohernie]

[QUOTE=sghoughton]I would second the ezgenerator recommendation/QUOTE]

It looks really good. Any idea of how hard it would be for it to "take over" a site done in Frontpage 2002?

Also, how well does it integrate Flash & PHP?

Ernie

[EricWatkins]

Does look cool. What about streaming videos on it for demo purposes? Can it do that kind of thing?

[sghoughton]

As far as "take over" i really dont think that would be an option with this tool. The tool is entirely template based and any out put from that is generated based on the template plus the data that you add. That doesn't mean its not flexible though. Basically I wanted to be lazy and not necessarily worry about the graphic design/layout aspect but i wanted it to have my own look. In each case of my three sites I was able to settle on a design/color scheme that i liked and thought i could work with. The process after that was to then change the graphics to my own photography, and then put in the photo galleries.

The photo galleries tool is my own choice and not part of the ezgenerator tool. To incorporate that into the end result i specified a section on the page to house an iframe - this is something that lets you basically put any content in it you want and make it appear as if its inline and part of the main page. So again, it wanted the least amount of effort for what i thought was a decent result as well as having a customized aspect to the presentation.

They have templates listed on their sites front page - there literally are thousands. There has to be somethign in there that appeals to everyone. Once you put your own graphics in place, that presentation really does become your own and you're off to the races.

If you were integrating flash and php, you would likely use a trick similar to the one i mentioned above. If you have specific questions, they have great forums on there and very fast responses from the developers of the application (its the same company that makes FL Studio and their other synths actuall).

Streaming video would also be similar.

steve

[SimonF]

Edit: He is not interested in taking on anymore work at the moment. Sorry about that, and I hope you manage to sort something out.

I bought Wimplayer for audio but they also do one for video aswell as a combination player.

Let me know if this helps.

Simon

[scientist]

also look at blog templates as a good way to build a basic site. check out wordpress or textpattern. with these you can't escape learning a little bit about html, but they do provide a way to construct a site that is easily updateable. my site is done using wordpress:
www.strongforthefuture.com

currently it just uses a single page with 'categories' to separate what would normally be separate pages, but i'm updating to a new template soon that allows of easy creation of multiple pages.

wordpress essentially provides a front end for presentation of your library of information (text, images, video, etc) via the use of "themes". themes are easily changeable without affecting any of your content, so you can completely change the look of your site without having to worry about losing any of your content. oh, and its free!

[Houston Haynes]

I am currently PC based and will always have one around even if I do change to a MAC (inevitable) for my DAW.

Why is that inevitable?

:confused:

Save your money - stick to PC and use the available cash for a decent site. I use Lunarpages (http://www.lunarpages.com), and created a Joomla-based site with a free template and replaced the boiler-plate site graphics with some I created on my own with Gimp (free image editor) - added some [paid-for] media player components and have never been happier. I pay about $100 per year for the site and have tons of space and more bandwidth available that I could ever possibly use.

[croftish]

I would second iWeb , part of iLife8 on Mac. Took me about an hour to create a simple but elegant site with streaming audio & video :)
If you were to spend a little time you could create something very impressive for very little outlay.
It's incredibly intuitive, straightforward and neither assumes prior knowledge of web site development nor treats you like a moron with a paperclip helper :n:
Jim

[JerryPettit]

I'll third EZGenerator.

I ended up going with Wordpress blogging software for my two sites-- www.jerrypettit.com/blog and www.pettitfunds.com -- which allows embedding of audio files.

But I also own EZGenerator and am very impressed with what it does for the money--and the site has a forum with a lot of support for you.

Don't laugh, but: I see that a lot of musicians set up pretty good-looking sites at MySpace, and post a lot of demo music. Might be worth checking out...

[ohernie]

Don't laugh, but: I see that a lot of musicians set up pretty good-looking sites at MySpace...
No reason to laugh, MySpace's free hosting has made it the modern "Tripod".

Ernie

[autopilot]

http://joomla.org

Completely free and open source.

Checkout http://autopilotproductions.com or http://efthemusical.com

Really easy to use, great UI and modules, including a great little shop called virtuemart. Heaps of free templates as well

[phil86]

I'd definitely have a look at RapidWeaver for the Mac.

http://www.realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/index.php

It's like iWeb on steroids. Lets you add blogs, fantastic slideshows, password protect pages, add contact pages, add jukeboxes...all for $49 - loads of very cheap plug-ins allow all sorts of content to be created.

Heres a couple of sites made with RapidWeaver:

http://www.colinhare-and-honeybus.co.uk/
http://www.lineformpastries.co.uk/

Phil