Advice? [elanya]

I want to set up a web page for myself - something for me as a researcher and as a writer. A professional page representing myself to the world. I have space on the A&M server that i could use for this, but I'm not 100% sure how I access it. I have also never put together a web page before. I would probably put links to

measured_words on there, but this would be more *about* writing than that journal (where, I might add, I have recently posted a new segment/revision of the Cursed Wreck, locked).

So, what is my best way of going about this? I may use it as a blog site, for relevant things, but I don't want it to have *just* a blog. I want to have a section for links, and a different page for fiction, and non fiction, and a place to post essays and such i have written, and so forth. I really know nothing about either programming or graphic design - I'd like something simple that looks nice. Can anyone recommend a good program, or a place where I can see some nice templates, or give me any other advice on doing this?

Thanks!

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I've head Google Pages highly recommended as a way to throw together a web page with no experience. I've also heard good things about Ning, which isn't designed for the purpose, but apparently fits it quite well. Myself, I started playing with HTML in my teens, and now I do it professionally, and I couldn't do it any other way than at the code level, building my website with html, CSS, javascript, and PHP if needed. w3schools is the best html, css and js reference out there, and is used by a ton of website designers that I know. PHP resources are less reliable, but I doubt you want to get into that yet anyway - that's for more dynamic pages, or creating backends to ajax data from (ajax is a set of techniques which lets you update information on a web page without refreshing it or moving to another page).

FireBug and the web developer toolbar are great tools for debugging websites in firefox, as is the DOM inspector that you can choose to install when you install firefox itself. There are similar applications to the web dev toolbar for internet explorer and opera as well, which can be handy if you're trying to balance your site so that it looks good in every browser.

In terms of software to do it for you, once upon a time, when Macromedia was self-owned, Dreamweaver was the only website-building software anyone ever recommended. I've not heard anything about it in years, though, and I doubt you want to shell out $400US (or whatever the student price is) just to build a few web pages.

Sorry for the big info burst - I hope some of that's helpful! If you do decide to delve right in and get your hands dirty, you're welcome to bug me for help and debugging.

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If you don't want to be bothered with learning how to code HTML (though it is very simple) you'll want some sort of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get HTML) editor. Dreamweaver is pretty much the best one available, so if you're going to go that route I would recomend that you acquire yourself a copy.

I would tell you to use some simple CMS (Content Management System) / or blogging software such as Wordpress (it does both) but chances are that you A&M webspace doesn't include a MySQL database which you would need to use that software.

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Lars' post also reminded me to let you know that Ning and certain other online CMS sites (like livejournal) allow you to tie them to a registered domain name - you may be able to get your university to point the address they provide to you at a site created and hosted elsewhere.

I agree with the Brit. If you want to do it right, do it in base code, and learn it from w3. Anyone who's had to try and read the garled mess that is autogenerated code will probably agree.

However, you are not the nerd that I am. (and yay, Ian, someone else who agrees with me! So you're not the nerd he is, either!)
A cheaty way I've seen other people do it is to sign up for one of those annoying build it yourself webpage sites with all the templates (like bravenet.com), the ones with all the banners and popups, and once you've got the page he way you like it, using all of their tools, tansplant it onto your desktop, and from there to your webpage.

To set one up is incredibly easy, all you need is an ftp client with secure channel capabilities (I like winscp - http://winscp.net/eng/index.php , and a host address, username and password that A&M's computing services shouldeasily be able to set you up with. (That's why they get paid the big bucks!) Copy the files exactly the way they're configured on your desktop to your school space, and you're set up!

elanya

Advice?

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Hooray for markup purists, I thought we were all dead!

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