Building a website - most basic noob question

[MartinP]

The OP is in the Netherlands so I would suggest looking at Flexwebhosting, from Eindhoven. They have package-deals with domain-names or without, different traffic levels etc etc. The deals all come with a huge choice of software, automatic install and updates - the whole usual thing. For software, look first at Gallery (or Gallery Two), then later you can use Joomla for layout and content while keeping the pictures in Gallery. Or go the blog route with Wordpress.

And like everyone says, avoid Flash.

 

[wgerrard]

wgerrad - fair enough, something to consider for sure. To keep my options open, can you recomend good "canned-but-modifiable" design providers? I came across quite a few.

Sorry, I can't recommend anything or anyone specific. Wordpress blogs can be set up on a multitude of servers and thousands of Wordpress templates ("themes" in the parlance) are available. A small percentage of those are intended for use by photographers. Most are free, some are not. You can get a good feel for what is available by Googling a phrase like "Wordpress photoblog". Design credits and links are usually included in a footer at the bottom of a site's pages, so if you find something appealing you can almost always chase down the author.

I should say that modifying something like a Wordpress theme is a matter of altering code, not dragging shapes around with a mouse. Tools like Dreamweaver offer that capability, but are geared more toward static content, whereas blog software is geared to someone who wants to add and edit content frequently, accept comments, etc.

If you find someone who can design and build an acceptable site for, say, around $500, you might seriously consider that. That's a bargain basement price, but might be good enough for a college student or an unemployed web designer. Buying Dreamweaver or other tools and adding in your time is gonna get you pretty close to that amount, in any case.

 

[CorreCaminos]

Another one I can recommend is crystaltech.com They offer hosting plans that are Frontpage enabled for those of you who use MS-Frontpage. I use them for one of my clients whose site is done in Coldfusion to support a shopping cart software that she had bought before I began working with her. As with mediatemple, crystaltech's tech support has been very knowledgeable and helpful and is in the USA with English speaking employees.

Crystaltech is an outstanding web host company. I had a website hosted with them for close to 8 years and I can highly recommend them. Their support was fantastic too.

 

[Matt Sampson]

I'm not sure if you're using a Mac or not but iWeb works pretty well and is easy to get the hang of fairly quickly. The trick is to make a site that doesn't look like it was made in iWeb by manipulating the templates. The other problem I found was that it doesn't really have photographers in mind in that too many pictures can take an age to load. So I used Simpleviewer to make the portfolio pages as Flash and linked to those. It could be quicker but that's because I need to work on the images to make them a bit more web friendly and still have to get around to it. I used Cyberduck for FTP rather than the one built into iWeb, mainly because I liked it's simplicity and could more easily undersatnd what was going on. As for a host I didn't use the Mac Mobile Me service as I thought it was too expensive. I went with, and would recommend one.com. They're based in Denmark I think. The support is great, the rates sensible and I've never had a problem. If you want to get more sophisticated with online sales facilities and such like than something like Dreamweaver is probably best. I did a short Dreamweaver course but am really no web expert and I managed to create something I liked without it. Anyway you can see at www.mattsampsonphotography.com

Matt.

 

[Matt Sampson]

I'm not sure if you're using a Mac or not but iWeb works pretty well and is easy to get the hang of fairly quickly. The trick is to make a site that doesn't look like it was made in iWeb by manipulating the templates. The other problem I found was that it doesn't really have serious photographers in mind in that too many pictures can take an age to load. So I used Simpleviewer to make the portfolio pages as Flash and linked to those. It could be quicker but that's because I need to work on the images to make them a bit more web friendly and still have to get around to it. I used Cyberduck for FTP rather than the one built into iWeb, mainly because I liked it's simplicity and could more easily undersatnd what was going on. As for a host I didn't use the Mac Mobile Me service as I thought it was too expensive. I went with, and would recommend one.com. They're based in Denmark I think. The support is great, the rates sensible and I've never had a problem. After all that it makes iWeb sound like a bad choice but I found it a good basis for building a site. If you want to get more sophisticated with online sales facilities and such like than something like Dreamweaver is probably best. I did a short Dreamweaver course but am really no web expert and I managed to create something I liked without it. Anyway you can see at www.mattsampsonphotography.com

Matt.

 

[jarski]

I would not doom flash entirely as bad choice, although have also seen bad examples of use of it.

Autoviewer for instance is neat little tool for photo slide shows. and is free.

if OP designs the whole site himself, he can choose to display both html and flash option of same gallery.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I would not doom flash entirely as bad choice, although have also seen bad examples of use of it.

Autoviewer for instance is neat little tool for photo slide shows. and is free.

if OP designs the whole site himself, he can choose to display both html and flash option of same gallery.

Flash is a HORRID choice. It makes the site completely and totally invisible to search engines.

 

[jarski]

It makes the site completely and totally invisible to search engines.

well, before one uses flash, he/she must acknowledge this fact, and use it accordingly 🙂

flash gives you effects otherwise impossible or difficult to achieve.

 

[_mark__]

Wordpress is the way to go. Very simple to use and very simple to navigate for others, thousands of free templates. I can point you in the direction of a few beautiful examples of its use if you want?

 

[Phantomas]

Thanks a lot people! All advice much appreciated.

I just got a copy of Dreamweaver CS4. Waiting for shops to open tomorrow to get "DW for Dummies". Will proceed to learn and build.
The out-of-can-just-add-water websites look quite good and are very tempting as quick yet effective solution, but I feel like I'll be missing out on flexibility and of course I'll learn very little. Playing around in DW some things are coming back, I think I'll manage. Of course there are way too many options, but I'll enlist some help from a tutorial book and should be fine.
Well, let's see, I hope to submit a site for your critique in 2-3 months. The most difficult part by far will be selecting a portfolio....

Edit: ^^ Mark - can you still point me to those templates you've mentioned? Still something to look at.

 

[_mark__]

Edit: ^^ Mark - can you still point me to those templates you've mentioned? Still something to look at.

No problem my three favorite wordpress sites are design related, they were designed, in part, by Kleber

http://generationpress.co.uk/
http://www.wearebuild.com/blog/
http://www.notforcommercialuse.com/index.php?img=1&dir=.

A catalog of some great sites http://www.minimalsites.com/

free themes
http://wordpressthemesbase.com/

Finally Todd Hido's site that works really well and is dead simple to do
http://www.toddhido.com/

 

[user237428934]

I don't understand your goal. Is it to learn how to build a website or is it to have a website to show your photos? If you want to learn it, you have to do it yourself of course. If you only want to show photos and you have limited time why not use something that is ready and spend the time on making photos?
Do you really need your own domain?
I like flash and the only disadvantage I see is, that a single photo can not be found via a search engine. If you need this, flash is no option.
I like the way carbonmade displays photos (they use flash). It's not cheap but easy to use and a lot of photographers and designers have their portfolio there.
Here is a random portfolio from my bookmarks:
http://leilagarfield.carbonmade.com/

 

[Phantomas]

I don't understand your goal. Is it to learn how to build a website or is it to have a website to show your photos?

Quite easy - both! 🙂 I've considered to quickly throw my photos on one of the ready sites, but I'm in no hurry, so instead I'll concentrate on learning and slowly building my own. I don't need it to sell photos/market myself, that's not my goal. Rather I aim for clean and pleasing gallery design and, most importantly, use it as a tool to give myself a direction/portfolio of photos that I'd like to be represented with, rather than all "cute" shots together. Plus flexibility of tuning the site as I se fit to the smallest detail.

 

[youngmrcurtis]

While not as outright helpful as some suggestions, here's a very useful tool for helping choose a colour scheme.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Hey Phantomas,

For a Dutch Web Host check out www.sohosted.com. I've used them for several years and I am quite pleased with their service. They're not very expensive either (there probably are cheaper services though)

My site is a mixture of Wordpress, Coppermine and some of my own HTML.
It's time to rebuild it though. It's getting a little dated.

 

[kipkeston]

You should check out Ruby on Rails. It's a great platform to learn.

 

[nonot]

I will second (or third?) open source options since learning CSS (CSS takes care of the styling of a page) is much easier than learning the myriad of programming languages needed to make a gallery site function properly.

Wordpress is a good start, but I don't know if it's suitable for the site you want to create without a lot of work. You might check out indexhibit as an option, it's almost perfect when it comes to a photography site's needs. You will see a lot of people's sites looking the exact same, but that's where a basic knowledge of css and the willingness to experiment come into play.

I'm happy to answer any questions I can for you along the way... good luck!

b.

 

[climbing_vine]

I may be able to say more when I get a proper written instruction book with words in it instead of on-line techno-nerd Californian psychobabble Newspeak instruction videos. My webmaster (who speaks highly of the program) is finding me a book. The basics are comparatively easy to pick up but the webmaster says they're 'not good html'. I suspect it'll do everything I want, and more, but right now I'm using basic tables and stuff.

Cheers,

R.

He's right about the "not good html", and it matters for a variety of reasons including searchability, load times (more and more people using comparatively slow cell connections for web), and browser compatibility. Dreamweaver is okay for some things, but paradoxically it requires someone with in-depth HTML knowledge to prod it into doing things well.

 

[aizan]

good choice to go with dreamweaver. the blogging tools (typepad, movable type, wordpress, blogger, etc.) are a PITA if you want to make a site the way you want it. they're fine if you want something quick and dirty, though.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

My whole web design method was to go to sites I liked, Ctrl-U for "view source," copy and paste the whole thing, then rip it to pieces and replace all the elements with my own, all with an html manual by my side.