Website startup questions for Nerd Internet Types

[skra75]

I'm considering making my own site to feature art and stuff and also serve as an outlet for me (blog, sneaker review, art reviews, recipes, music, etc). However, I don't know jack about starting one up and I'm intimidated as shit about it. I have a buddy who writes flash code and he is saying it's like 20 bucks a month to get space on a server and 1000-3000 for even the most basic flash website. (n)(n)

those who know me know I'm too frugal for that shit and would much rather do my shit myself for free with hard work. Also, I don't want to pay for server time.

What options exist for me? would it be easier to go HTML instead of flash, and if so are there some nifty tools out there that I can do it myself with, or is it a long time consuming process to learn the shit? I know a handful of stuff from myspace, but that's about where it ends.

Help pls. thanks all - hugs - skra

[jabumbo]

you could do html unless you want to have lots of crazy stuff going on with your site. if you can't code it yourself, you can use programs like frontpage or dreamweaver to generate something for you. its really user friendly software, but the code itself is pretty messy.


if you want a site that looks good, you'll have to pay for the host. you can get free webspace but you can always tell when someone is using it and its pretty lame

[Waus]

I say pay for the host. If you want a decent site it's going to cost just a little, and plus when you pay for the host they give you storage space so you could upload all your big art images and save them on there.

As far as building the site, if you really want to do it yourself I advise reading some stuff off here:

http://www.w3schools.com/

Making your own flash site actually just got harder in Flash CS3, but if you're really interested you could try some of the tutorials from Lynda.com or just google around for different things. The downside of building a flash site is that they're usually hard to update unless you get into insanely complex stuff like using xml servers. I advise just building a simple site with HTML and using a little CSS to make some design-y stuff for the page. Maybe, if you feel like it, just learning enough flash to make a few nifty transitions or widgets.

Let me know, it's a good part of what I do for a living.

[skra75]

thanks all for the advice.
I see this as my training wheels website, I don't want to invest anything in it until I know I can fit the idea of it into my life.
I want to get the routine of updating, changing, answering random emails, whatever. I'd hate to pay for a nice site and then never use it. I don't mind banners and such for right now.
Any guidance on free servers? IF they suck I kinda don't care as long as they are easy to use.

[Waus]

There's some different sites, but honestly - it's more like 12$ a month on the high end of hosting, and if you pay for that most of those sites have services that let you setup your own e-mail and stuff like that. I don't know much about free hosting to be honest.

[beastieangel01]

Waus is pretty much on point.

I definitely say start off with simple HTML/CSS. As far as freebies are concerned, I'm not sure what's out there anymore because I am hosted by a friend. I'll dig a bit though.

[roosta]

Definitely XHTML/CSS. You can do great stuff with CSS.

If its a blog, or a dynamic site with ever changing content i'd suggest using a content management system. You install it and boom, its there, you can add pages, links, blog regularly and it does all the backend database stuff, and you can style it yourself if you don't like any themes out there.

Yeah, you can get loads of space/bandwidth for about 10-20 dollars a month, more than a personal site will need anyway.

Im intimidated to look at Flash CS3 :o

[Waus]

Im intimidated to look at Flash CS3 :o

Dude, don't be. Flash CS3 is the bomb - so many easy new features. The only thing that sucks is learning actionscript 3.0, which technically you'll have to do no matter what version of flash you use.

Videos and "filters" (layer styles) are streamlined in CS3.

[roosta]

Dude, don't be. Flash CS3 is the bomb - so many easy new features. The only thing that sucks is learning actionscript 3.0, which technically you'll have to do no matter what version of flash you use.

Videos and "filters" (layer styles) are streamlined in CS3.

yeah...i hear actionscript 3 is actually closer to regular programming languages like javascript, its much more object oriented and modular and all. its more actionscript 3 im scared of.

[cosmo105]

*stuffs you all into a locker* GEEKS