Becoming a webmaster

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve volunteered my skills to my family, and am shortly going to begin work on a family web page.

While I’d like to think I have a strong knowledge of html and basic web-type stuff, there is a lot I don’t know.

Is there a good resource on the web dealing with such topics as:

[ul]
[li]Where/how to purchase (or whatever) a domain name (www.myfamilyname.net or something).[/li][li]Where/how to get server space (something that I’d have to pay for is fine… I don’t want popups and anticipate some nifty functions later on).[/li][li]How to assign said domain name to specific web address[/li][li]Some basic javascript knowledge.[/li][li]Probably some other things I can’t think of, but you get the idea.[/li][/ul]

Like I said, I don’t think I’d need a play-by-play for some of these things, but as someone who’s never done this before, I need some sort of direction to get me off my feet.

Oh, being a n00bie sucks!

2

Here’s some suggestions, but I’m sure others will help as well:

  1. Don’t buy a domain name from Network Solutions. They are horrible jerks and are hard to communicate with and cost a ton of money. Go to www.GoDaddy.com and get a name for $9 a year. Buy that name yourself and not through your hosting company. You need to have your own login and control of your own domain name. Going through a hosting company makes you lose some control (usually all control).

  2. I’ve heard really great things lately about www.webhost4life.com You can start off at $5/month for basic hosting, then move up to $10 or $20 a month for more space/features (even MSSQL, which is a phenomenal price). As with anything free, you get what you pay for, so I wouldn’t even bother with free hosts unless you get a few people to refer them for you.

  3. Buy your domain name first then either your host will help you change the nameservers or the host will tell you what your nameserver record should point to, and you go change them yourself at the place where you bought the name. If you go with GoDaddy for domain name, then you will learn a little about nameservers as you sign up. When you first sign up they will fill in the nameservers for you and you can come back and change. Usually nameservers will named be something like ns0.yourhost.net and ns1.yourhost.net.

  4. http://javascript.internet.com has a huge collection of free javascript scripts you can cut-and-paste into your site, and then you can tweak them yourself and learn as you go.

  5. Do you have a good HTML editor? Since you’re a “n00bie” I wouldn’t recommend the old Notepad as an editor. I also don’t recommend FrontPage, as it tends to be more messy than anything. DreamWeaver is OK but it may be TOO much for what you want. I’ve never used GoLive but I don’t like it. My most favorite HTML editor ever is HomeSite. I have the “old” version which is the 4.x release, and the 5.x releases are more like DreamWeaver from what I’ve read (because DW’s company bought HS’s company). I think HomeSite is the best value for the money.

Also, you’ll need an FTP program if you don’t have one. I like CUTE or WS_FTP. Most anything will do the job fine,and there’s a lot of free ones out there.

Good luck, I hope you have fun! :slight_smile:

3

If you don’t want to be a “n00bie” forever, you’ll use Notepad. :slight_smile:

4

I do have FTP voyager, so I’m set there.

As far as editing software, I’ve got Dreamweaver MX, which I use a little at work (no, I don’t nearly use it to its full capacity). All of the plain coding by hand I just do in notepad.

Thanks for the suggestions so far. If anyone else wants to chime in, feel free. :slight_smile:

5

OK, here is my two cents…

I also would discourage purchasing the domain name from NSI, as you pay more for less. Not familiar with GoDaddy, but most any domain registrar will do. Expect to pay at least $10 per year, but not more than $25. Register.com and Dotster.com are two I am familiar with - no strong recommendation - but they are both worthy of consideration.

As for hosting, I think this is a really important choice. I use Interland, which is now the largest independent web hosting company. Their entry level plans start at $17 a month and go up from there. It’s a quality operation, customer service is pretty good, and the online tools and utilities are excellent. You get 30 email boxes, plenty of disk space and bandwidth, and would certainly meet your needs. But they may be overkill for you, just hosting a “family” site.

Your hosting company will help you point your domain name to their server.

I also use my free hosting that comes along with my cable modem service with ATT Broadband. Basically, it sucks, but it is free (with the service).

Before you choose your hosting provider, you probably should choose the platform that you want to be hosted on. Mostly, you’ll choose between Apache running on Linux or MS IIS running on Win2k. The decision is important in the aspect of what technology you want to use. ASP on MS, or cgi on Apache, javascript on either. All these should be able to provide hooks to server-side services like Sendmail (or its equivalent).

I’m a newbie, too, and I like good old fashioned text editors. Notepad is fine, but has a few drawbacks. A free tool I started using is HTML Helper Webmaster (there are lots of other tools free to download from that page, but I’ve only tried Webmaster, and quite happy with its basic functionality). It allows you, with one button, to toggle between a browser view and the text editor. It also highlights different types of entries, which helps find unclosed tags and other editing errors.

Find sites you like, and “steal” their source. Of course, I’m not truly advocating stealing, but a great way to learn is to find what you like, then look under the covers. Copy the concepts and integrate them into your page (particularly useful for some javascript like mouse-over buttons).

And don’t hesitate to learn by trial and error. Figure out what you want, then go figure out how to do it!

Read as much as you can at HTML Goodies. I learned a good bit of ASP, Javascript, and using website cookies from this site. Lot’s of good stuff. Where it leaves you with questions, do google searches for the details.

6

I bought mine through Network Solutions, they are fine. I paid for ten years up front one time with them as they had a special but even then their stupid computer couldn’t handle ten years forward reg …lol But at the time I first got them they were the only ones operating.

www.GoDaddy.com has an interesting price …

Also get a book at your library on being a webmaster.

7

Notepad is for L00$3Rz! Be L337, get a shell account, and use emacs. :slight_smile:

Seriously, ZipperJJ gave a good summary.

Another good registry service is NameCheap.

A little known secret … if you can’t find a good name in the .com, .org or .net realm, you can register .uk, .nz (New Zealand), .il (Israel) and .za (South Africa) domain names fairly cheaply, even if you’re not a resident of the country.

I host my Web site through 100 Megs Web Hosting at http://www.100megswebhosting.com , and I’m quite happy with their service and support. You get a lot of bandwidth, disk space and features for the price, especially if you have a larger site. Pair Hosting (http://www.pair.com) seems to get the most respect from hardcore Webmasters.

BTW … don’t get a swoosh logo, or call any company that you start “[some name] Solutions”.

8

Nawwww.

Only masochists and web luddites continue to use Notepad. :slight_smile:

NoteTab is a much better choice if you want to cut your teeth on raw code.

Then again, if you don’t want to be labled an Internet Idiot, don’t use any M$ product than comes standard on a computer these days or which costs less than $100.00 to create a web site. :smiley:

9
      • StarOffice has an HTML editor that doesn’t work too badly, and version 5.0 was/is still free, if you can find it somewhere.
        ~
10

Since you’re looking for advice and opinions, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.

11

If you don’t want to go through all the trouble, you can go to a web hosting company such as F2S. They will handle the domain name registration for you, and they will point that at your website.

A very good HTML editor is arachnoidphilia. A big bonus is it is completely free.

12

If you don’t know much about HTML codes, pay a little bit and go through Geocities. I have my website with them, registered the domain name, and if you upgrade from a free package to the first level ($11.95/month) they have something called Site Wizard, where you type in info and they’ll make the page for you. I’ve learned a little about HTML codes, and I’ve played around a bit with them, but I still am not too comfortable with them. Except for a period of three days where my webmaster@—.com address didn’t work (half hour on the phone with Geocities fixed that) I’ve been very happy.

13

my site, www.rusmo.com :D, has been hosted by CrystalTech for the last two years. I’ve had no trouble at all with them and they continually upgrade server capabilities, statistical packages, and levels of service so you’re always getting more for your money.

Check them out at www.crystaltech.com !!!

14

As far as hosting goes, I’d go with 3-95.com whose hosting is, coincidentally enough, $3.95/month.

It includes all the usual bells and whistles (PHP support, SQL db, FrontPage extensions, etc.), has good storage and bandwidth quotas, and also allows for unlimited subdomains (the part, usually WWW, that goes before the domainname.com part).

So, for instance, your last name is Doe. If you’re easily amused, as I am, you can have:
John.Doe.com
Jane.Doe.com
Camel.Doe.com
and so on.

As far as setting up your Domain Name Servers (DNS), you simply tell your DN registrar (through a web form) what your webhost’s nameservers are and you’re set.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

15

I should also note that most webhosts will offer registration services, which will simplify things, though it will cost a little bit more (about $14 or so, maybe more).

GoDaddy really is the cheapest I’ve come across ($7.95), and they handle everything quickly, and their domain management tool is easy to use as well.