Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Beginner's Questions => Topic started by: htony on January 31, 2008, 04:29:47 pm
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I purchased my domain name with the plan to develop a website to post, and publish some of my photos. I went with hostmonster.com who had a decent review and a special running.
www.tonybrianhardee.com
Does anyone have suggestions about how to develop an attractive site that is organized well to display photos and maybe a blog? I have no experience with HTML code. They website builder that they provide is very basic and kinda leaves me disappointed with the results.
Has anyone every purchased a template and used that successfully?
Is it hard to learn to build a website?
I don't have Frontpage, so is there a free/inexpensive alternative?
Any suggestions are appreciated
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I purchased my domain name with the plan to develop a website to post, and publish some of my photos. I went with hostmonster.com who had a decent review and a special running.
www.tonybrianhardee.com
Does anyone have suggestions about how to develop an attractive site that is organized well to display photos and maybe a blog? I have no experience with HTML code. They website builder that they provide is very basic and kinda leaves me disappointed with the results.
Has anyone every purchased a template and used that successfully?
Is it hard to learn to build a website?
I don't have Frontpage, so is there a free/inexpensive alternative?
Any suggestions are appreciated
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171333\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
You might try loading up wordpress. With a proper template (search for them over at wordpress.org) you can easily fit photos into your posts.
Often hosting companies will have fantastico that will automagically install things like wordpress.
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I purchased my domain name with the plan to develop a website to post, and publish some of my photos. I went with hostmonster.com who had a decent review and a special running.
www.tonybrianhardee.com
Does anyone have suggestions about how to develop an attractive site that is organized well to display photos and maybe a blog? I have no experience with HTML code. They website builder that they provide is very basic and kinda leaves me disappointed with the results.
Has anyone every purchased a template and used that successfully?
Is it hard to learn to build a website?
I don't have Frontpage, so is there a free/inexpensive alternative?
Any suggestions are appreciated
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=171333\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The web is pretty simple
You can create web pages using even notepad or any simple text editor you just change the extension from TXT to HTML (some macs mess this up) !
you can see the code of any webpage by choosing 'view source' in you web browser
Google 'HTML tutorial' or suchlike there are loads of sites that take you through the basics of HTML
I think an simple knowledge of HTML is a useful skill
However current websites are often complex with loads of code and use flash or java to make them more appealing
My recomendation would be to get a grip on basic HTML - you can build a couple of sites on your own machine - you dont have to show them to the world
My SamMorganMoore.com site is very minimal and could be built in HTML
However the current trend is for a more fancy web look
To get that you either need to learn a lot of code AND have design flare OR get the hand of using templates and packages
Livebooks for example is a popular template, most blogs are packages too
You could of course save time (and waste a load of money if you get the wrong people) by employing a designer to do it for you
A summary of my recomendation get a basic grip of HTML and then learn how to put packages or templates together yourself
S
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It really depends a lot on what software you have already, and what you're willing to buy. Lightroom for example has its own web gallery, and there are other extensions (some free, some for sale) that will work with it. You can find some more information here, for example: http://lightroom-blog.com/ (http://lightroom-blog.com/) JAlbum is another free software package that will allow you to create a web gallery of your images and there are many, many skins for that program.
Word processing programs like MS Word or WordPerfect will allow you to create a document and then export it to html without knowing any code.
Having said all that, as Sam said, a basic knowledge of html wouldn't hurt. If you want to learn to code in JAVA or XML then you might want to consider going back to school...
Mike.
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I purchased my domain name with the plan to develop a website to post, and publish some of my photos. I went with hostmonster.com who had a decent review and a special running.
www.tonybrianhardee.com
Does anyone have suggestions about how to develop an attractive site that is organized well to display photos and maybe a blog? I have no experience with HTML code. They website builder that they provide is very basic and kinda leaves me disappointed with the results.
Has anyone every purchased a template and used that successfully?
Is it hard to learn to build a website?
I don't have Frontpage, so is there a free/inexpensive alternative?
Any suggestions are appreciated
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=171333\")
Try [a href=\"http://www.moonfruit.com]Moonfruit[/url]!
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It appears that Hostmonster accounts include Wordpress. So, I would say there's your blog solution. It's really easy to deal with, and there's loads of templates available on the web to customize the look. Also, it seems that you also have access to Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/). That might be something to look into for building and manging your site. If they handle this anything like my web host, in your control panel there is some function that will allow you to install or activate these features. It's should be pretty painless.
In the interest of full disclosure...I write web sites for a living (been doing it for 12 years). I wrote everything for my own site myself..blog software, content management, templates, DHTML, etc. So, that's what I'd recommend for the most flexibility. I do use Wordpress for a different site I work with, but I have never used Joomla...I just checked it out when I switched web hosts to see what it was all about.
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Maybe you could consider using Drupal?
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This may be cheating, but I did mine with fineartstudioonline.com, being the non-techie that I am. I love it! And you can use your own domain name. 28 bucks a month for a quality site. mechelleschlossfineart.com
Good luck!
mechelle
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Mechelle,
Let me just check on a couple of things. Are we to understand that using this service, you are able to easily customize a website using their templates? Do they make distinctions between artists who work in pen and ink, pencil, paints, etc. verses the photographic arts? If it would be easy to accomplish and I wouldn't get thrown out for not being a painter, this looks like a great deal. Please elaborate.
Best regards,
David
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Mechelle,
Let me just check on a couple of things. Are we to understand that using this service, you are able to easily customize a website using their templates? Do they make distinctions between artists who work in pen and ink, pencil, paints, etc. verses the photographic arts? If it would be easy to accomplish and I wouldn't get thrown out for not being a painter, this looks like a great deal. Please elaborate.
Best regards,
David
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=184503\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Hello David,
Yes, and you get the first month free to try everything out and make sure it's all you need it to be before laying out cash.
My husband did build his own site, rayschoss.com, and it took him a lot of time and know how (he works for Microsoft as well so he knows a bit about this kind of stuff). I was impatient, wanted to do something "on my own", and feel like I was a part of the process (instead of handing it off to hubby) so when I came upon this site I was very impressed. I found it when I was looking at another artists work and thought his site was awesome and checked into it.
I do believe there are photographers who use fineartsonline.com, and that they do differentiate and help you with marketing if you need it/want it. It will be easy enough to find out how many photographers that are hanging about. I do know that their customer service is 24/7 excellent. I just had that experience.
Let me know what you think!
I'll check into the photography side as well and check back.
Mechelle
mechelleschloss.com
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jalbum
http://jalbum.net (http://jalbum.net)
totally file and folder based - any web host can handle it. my site is using it
-John
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Building a website using Frontpage or Publisher is one thing, getting it to work on the server is another. I tore my hair out trying to get things functioning as they should and am still none the wiser as to why they didn't. However, I found my hosting company offered 'SiteStudio' as part of the package which enabled me to get a website together in just a couple of hours. It's grown since then and I am now finding it somewhat limiting, but as a place to start it was an answer to my prayers. Google 'H-Sphere' for hosts that offer the package.
Justin.
www.justinseye.com
www.tipphorse.com