David Hendley on thu 13 sep 07
What am I missing? I just don't get these suggestions that
the choices for designing a website are:
1. hire a professional
2. learn HTML, https, JavaScript, CSS, SQL, etc.
or
3. use a template and have a crummy-looking site.
I would offer my website as an example of a homemade website
that looks nice, has lots of content, and produces hundreds of
dollars worth of sales each month.
I used Microsoft FrontPage to design it. I don't know anything
about the alphabet soup of terms that Earl lists:
> Learn the ins and outs of HTML, CSS,
> screen resolution, http, https, sessions,
> shopping carts, SQL databases, javascript,
> active server pages, eccentricities of all the
> browsers in usage (iexplorer, Safari, Firefox)
> and, most important of all, page design and
> usability.
Heck, I don't even know what CSS, sessions, or SQL
databases are.
And what does this mean, from Josh Berkus?
>For that matter, if your site isn't secure, it won't be long before some
>teenage script-kiddie defaces it or turns it into a spam engine, erasing
>your
>web site in the bargain, and maybe getting your domain name blacklisted.
Is someone going to hijack my website? It has been OK
for 6 or 7 years now.
My shopping cart is from PayPal. I simply go to the PayPal
website and type in my product information, and it generates
the code that I copy and paste to my website. All financial
dealings are done on secure PayPal sites.
How much did building my website cost?
Well, nothing really - FrontPage came bundled with other MS
Office programs. If you are familiar with Microsoft programs like
Word, Access, and Excel, FrontPage is very easy to use, since
it uses the same Microsoft kind of shortcuts, special keys, etc.
as their other programs.
I'm sure there are also free programs that will also do an
adequate job.
Surely a visual artist will be able to design a nice-looking
website, and I encourage people to design their own.
Some of the most awful website I have seen are those
of computer whizzes whose idea of good taste is a dinner
date at Taco Bell.
The best thing about designing your own website is that
you will understand how it works so you will be able to
easily and regularly update it, also for free. If you pay a
designer you are pretty much locked in to keeping them
on retainer for updates.
Am I missing something here?
BTW, my FTP upload programs, required to upload the
website were free downloads. I have both Core FTP Lite
and Wise FTP.
My website hosting, 1 & 1, is about $4 a month, which includes
domain registration, so the total cost for a website that
generates real income is about $48 a year. PayPal takes a
cut of all sales, usually in the range of 3 1/2% for domestic
sales, a little more for international sales.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
Gordon Ward on thu 13 sep 07
Well said. Try doing what you can for free and if you feel the need
later on, do something fancier.
Gordon
On Sep 13, 2007, at 4:20 PM, David Hendley wrote:
> Surely a visual artist will be able to design a nice-looking
> website, and I encourage people to design their own.
> Some of the most awful website I have seen are those
> of computer whizzes whose idea of good taste is a dinner
> date at Taco Bell.
>
> The best thing about designing your own website is that
> you will understand how it works so you will be able to
> easily and regularly update it, also for free. If you pay a
> designer you are pretty much locked in to keeping them
> on retainer for updates.
June Perry on fri 14 sep 07
Like David, I recently used Frontpage 2003 to design my new web site. It is
super easy to use and doesn't take long at all to create a multi page site.
You just have to make sure that whichever host you use, will work with
Frontpage files - many do.
I'll continue to work on my site, as time permits, to improve it. I also
realize that the program has limitations; but maybe when I get deeper into it I
may actually find that I can do some of the other things I want - just have
to devote more time to it than I have at the moment. But when you consider the
cost factor, it's a great buy.
I agree with David that a lot of professional sites are a mess - too many
tricks and gizmos, slow loading times, hard to view work, etc. etc. Of course
there are many great ones; but again, one must consider the cost factor of
paying ten times more and even then you may be rolling the dice. For me, the
option of creating my own, was a challenge I wanted to take.
With Frontpage 2003, you don't need to know html codes. What you type on the
blank screen is converted to html by the program. Inserting pictures is very
easy. They even have options to automatically create thumbnails and you can
choose how big or small you want your thumbnail to be. There's even a photo
edit option in the program.
I've really been enjoying playing with the program, picking out background
colors, creating banners, etc.
I would suggest to check your finished page on different browsers and
different monitors. I created my new web site on my lap top and I've been in
computer hell all week with my laptop and have switched everything over to my older
desktop and my page colors look totally different on this system! A friend
also suggested to me that I check my site on various browsers because it was
doing some strange things on her computer. I think I corrected that problem
this morning and I've checked in on 3 different browsers and it seems to be
fine now.
Regards,
June
_http://www.shambhalapottery.com_ (http://www.shambhalapottery.com)
_http://shambhalapottery.blogspot.com_ (http://shambhalapottery.blogspot.com)
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
Forrest on fri 14 sep 07
I wish I'd read this thread before I hired a web designer! But in
self-defense, I spent a month of weekends trying to use Dreamweaver and
reading Websites for Dummies, Dreamweaver for Dummies and HTML made easy.
As a one-time graphic artist this should be easy stuff, I thought. Then I
thought I could have made a butt-load (technical term) of pots during the
time I apparently wasted. However, I do intend to learn this stuff so I can
maintain the site once I get it. It has been very useful to hear what
others have found helpful. Thanks.
Rosemary
On 9/14/07 1:49 PM, "June Perry" wrote:
> Like David, I recently used Frontpage 2003 to design my new web site. It is
> super easy to use and doesn't take long at all to create a multi page site.
> You just have to make sure that whichever host you use, will work with
> Frontpage files - many do.
> I'll continue to work on my site, as time permits, to improve it. I also
> realize that the program has limitations; but maybe when I get deeper into it
> I
> may actually find that I can do some of the other things I want - just have
> to devote more time to it than I have at the moment. But when you consider
> the
> cost factor, it's a great buy.
> I agree with David that a lot of professional sites are a mess - too many
> tricks and gizmos, slow loading times, hard to view work, etc. etc. Of course
> there are many great ones; but again, one must consider the cost factor of
> paying ten times more and even then you may be rolling the dice. For me, the
> option of creating my own, was a challenge I wanted to take.
> With Frontpage 2003, you don't need to know html codes. What you type on the
> blank screen is converted to html by the program. Inserting pictures is very
> easy. They even have options to automatically create thumbnails and you can
> choose how big or small you want your thumbnail to be. There's even a photo
> edit option in the program.
> I've really been enjoying playing with the program, picking out background
> colors, creating banners, etc.
> I would suggest to check your finished page on different browsers and
> different monitors. I created my new web site on my lap top and I've been in
> computer hell all week with my laptop and have switched everything over to my
> older
> desktop and my page colors look totally different on this system! A friend
> also suggested to me that I check my site on various browsers because it was
> doing some strange things on her computer. I think I corrected that problem
> this morning and I've checked in on 3 different browsers and it seems to be
> fine now.
>
>
> Regards,
> June
>
> _http://www.shambhalapottery.com_ (http://www.shambhalapottery.com)
>
> _http://shambhalapottery.blogspot.com_ (http://shambhalapottery.blogspot.com)
>
>
>
>
> ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
>
> ______________________________________________________________________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your subscription
> settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at melpots2@visi.com
David Hendley on fri 14 sep 07
Hi Rosemary, although I think my website looks just fine and
am proud that I did it myself, rest assured that I spent many
hours figuring out how to do it.
I am glad to hear that June and a few others also found Microsoft
FrontPage an easy-to-use program for a beginning website
designer. It really is pretty easy - what you see is what you get.
However, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to upload
data to the website, work out the bugs, and stuff like that.
My son made my first website. That was fine. Then he went to
college and would not update the website for me. That's when
I realized that I would just have to buckle down, put in the
time and effort, and learn how to do it myself.
I have never found how-to computer books very helpful. I prefer
to just dive in and try to figure out as I go.
David Hendley
Maydelle, Texas
david(at)farmpots(dot)com
http://www.farmpots.com
----- Original Message -----
>I wish I'd read this thread before I hired a web designer! But in
> self-defense, I spent a month of weekends trying to use Dreamweaver and
> reading Websites for Dummies, Dreamweaver for Dummies and HTML made easy.
> As a one-time graphic artist this should be easy stuff, I thought. Then I
> thought I could have made a butt-load (technical term) of pots during the
> time I apparently wasted. However, I do intend to learn this stuff so I
> can
> maintain the site once I get it. It has been very useful to hear what
> others have found helpful. Thanks.
>
> Rosemary
Marcia Selsor on fri 14 sep 07
I hired a friend's daughter to build my web page..she did it in GoLive.
I like the scroll. She did show me how to update it, but i haven't
done it yet.
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
On Sep 14, 2007, at 3:59 PM, Forrest wrote:
> I wish I'd read this thread before I hired a web designer! But in
> self-defense, I spent a month of weekends trying to use Dreamweaver
> and
> reading Websites for Dummies, Dreamweaver for Dummies and HTML made
> easy.
> As a one-time graphic artist this should be easy stuff, I thought.
> Then I
> thought I could have made a butt-load (technical term) of pots
> during the
> time I apparently wasted. However, I do intend to learn this stuff
> so I can
> maintain the site once I get it. It has been very useful to hear what
> others have found helpful. Thanks.
>
> Rosemary
Marcia Selsor
http://marciaselsor.com
Vicki Hardin on sat 15 sep 07
I use FrontPage also. It is a wonderful program and has a wide range of
possibilities. FrontPage uses software that needs to be placed on the
hosting server to allow the user to take advantage of all the program's
capabilities, like forms etc. FrontPage refers to this software as FrontPage
extensions. These extensions are not going to be supported by Microsoft in
the future so, I looked at FrontPage's replacement Microsoft Expression Web
which I found to be complicated. It does not seem to have been embraced by
the community of Web designers I am fortunate to know. They seem to have
migrated to Dreamweaver instead. I am also looking at Dreamweaver for the
future as one day, the extensions that make it possible for FrontPage's
versatility will no longer be supported by Microsoft and will not in some
cases be available on your hosting service's servers. So if you are just
getting started with your Web site, you may want to consider this. To me, it
seems the most involved part of developing your first Web site is learning
the software.
Vicki Hardin
http://ClayArtWebGuide.com
Lois Ruben Aronow on sat 15 sep 07
I was a die hard FrontPage user from day 1. I HATE Expression Wed. I
switched to Dreamweaver, and, for that matter, the whole CS3 web package.
Adobe Bridge makes it real easy to go from Photoshop to flash to dreamweaver
without having to import.
It's very intuitive - I am self taught. I am also a pc user.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clayart [mailto:CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG] On Behalf Of
> Vicki Hardin
> Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2007 11:49 AM
> To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
> Subject: Re: My homemade amateur website
>
> I use FrontPage also. It is a wonderful program and has a
> wide range of possibilities. FrontPage uses software that
> needs to be placed on the hosting server to allow the user to
> take advantage of all the program's capabilities, like forms
> etc. FrontPage refers to this software as FrontPage
> extensions. These extensions are not going to be supported by
> Microsoft in the future so, I looked at FrontPage's
> replacement Microsoft Expression Web which I found to be
> complicated. It does not seem to have been embraced by the
> community of Web designers I am fortunate to know. They seem
> to have migrated to Dreamweaver instead. I am also looking at
> Dreamweaver for the future as one day, the extensions that
> make it possible for FrontPage's versatility will no longer
> be supported by Microsoft and will not in some cases be
> available on your hosting service's servers. So if you are
> just getting started with your Web site, you may want to
> consider this. To me, it seems the most involved part of
> developing your first Web site is learning the software.
>
> Vicki Hardin
> http://ClayArtWebGuide.com
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> ________________
> Send postings to clayart@lsv.ceramics.org
>
> You may look at the archives for the list or change your
> subscription settings from http://www.ceramics.org/clayart/
>
> Moderator of the list is Mel Jacobson who may be reached at
> melpots2@visi.com
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