Who knows how to set up a site?!?!

[DekuTrash]

I know there's some intelligent people here, so
can anybody give me a crash course in setting up a website?

[sapi]

Dedicated? You'll probably need hosting then.

If not, and if you don't expect too much traffic at any one time, you can do it off your own connection. XP Pro and several vista versions come with IIS server, which is microsoft's web server. It's fairly easy to get running, though the new version that comes with vista has to get prizes for having the most non-intuitive interface ever

Otherwise, you can grab a free copy of apache, the open source server, and run with that. It's also fairly easy to set up, though as I don't use it but rather IIS, I can't help you with that

Running off your own connection, you've got to make sure to implement port forwarding on your router, set up a dynamic IP redirect (I use no-ip.com, but anything's good and they're free), and make sure you're running the server on a port that isn't filtered or blocked by your ISP. Odds are port 80 won't work, but 8080 or something similar will (anything works, just stick in 12345 or something if you need to test that).


The actual coding of the site itself is just done in html (or php, or asp, or whatever you want really) and is no more difficult than it was in the bunch of school assignments you no doubt got (just time-consuming)

[spartan_phalanx]

Firstly you need plan it out. Will you be needing a forum, will you be selling something ect. If it's just going to a personal site you might be better off going with a blog.

Otherwise if your just starting out a reliable cheap host should be perfect and is well worth the minimal cost so you can avoid managing it yourself.

I have a few small sites all run on cheap shared hosting and I couldn't be happier. None get more than a few thousand hits a month so bandwidth isn't a big deal.

A simple css/xhtml site is a snap to get going once you have the framework setup (hosting, domain).

[jimmy spong]

i know

dont mess with html and other stuff take frontpage or dreamviewer create if you got you place use ftp to upload piece of cake

[sapi]

i know

dont mess with html and other stuff take frontpage or dreamviewer create if you got you place use ftp to upload piece of cake

Well, if you must do it that way, at least avoid frontpage like the plague, expression web (the new version) is far easier to use, and much more standards compliant.

[Banned]

Well, if you must do it that way, at least avoid frontpage like the plague, expression web (the new version) is far easier to use, and much more standards compliant.

I would rather recommend Dreamweaver, which has far more user-friendly interface and pretty useful for making almost any type of site. On the other hand, the learning process would take at least a fortnight before one is capable of using Microsoft Expressions.

[sapi]

I would rather recommend Dreamweaver, which has far more user-friendly interface and pretty useful for making almost any type of site. On the other hand, the learning process would take at least a fortnight before one is capable of using Microsoft Expressions.

That's got to be the first time I've ever heard someone recommend Dreamweaver because it was 'more user friendly' than the competition

[Banned]

That's got to be the first time I've ever heard someone recommend Dreamweaver because it was 'more user friendly' than the competition

Yeah, it is, believe me. It's not just because I hate Microsoft. I've had a lot of experience in making websites, and I found Dreamweaver to be the best of all editors. Well, in the end it depends on personal preference I guess.

[Juno]

Learn to code by hand.

Don't be a tool and use a WYSIWYG editor.

I recommend vim, but that's just me.

[Simetrical]

I code by hand as well, generally using gedit (or vim if it's remote editing). But it's probably easier for most people to use Dreamweaver or something.

[spartan_phalanx]

I code by hand as well but use Expression for a quick visual when I need it. Also since I code xhtml/css I find the stylesheet feature of Expression handy (I'm much better at clicking than typing). In order to code by hand you have to fully understand the code and what the different tags mean and do. This takes a bit of time to learn and understand, so for those just starting out it's much easier to have a program manage all the tedious aspects like code formatting/syntax.

Another major headache in designing websites is cross browser support. Not all browsers handle and display markup the same way, which in turn can lead to some very frustrating and tricky problems. For the most part all major browsers are moving towards standards based rendering but they aren't 100% there yet.

[LordEdmundBlackadder]

Nobody has touched on the server-side aspect, so I'll try and give you a brief rundown.

When you visit TWC, your computer sends the TWC webserver a request -- using a specific protocol for communication called HTTP -- and the TWC server responds with the data relevant to your request. This requires, at the very least, a webserver on the TWC server to reply to your request. By far the most commonly used webserver is the Apache HTTP Server. You'll want to try and get familiar with it (It's like a race car driver learning about the mechanics of cars).

You have several options for learning about Apache, or your web server of choice. I would strongly recommend that you go ahead and just download and install it, so you can learn about the aspects of administration that you'll inevitably come across when you try and launch a full-flegged site. You may want to look into XAMPP or WAMP. They both include everything that you'll need to get yourself started, and are incredibly easy to use and install. Don't be afraid to experiment!

Building on that, your webserver often has special modules installed to let it process web programming languages. PHP is by far one of the best and easiest languages to pick up, and is included in XAMPP and WAMP. In essence, it lets you embed code into your web pages to make them dynamic. TWC has tonnes of dynamic PHP code, and is run by Apache. MySQL is something you'll want to look into once you have a concept of PHP. It lets you use databases to keep track of things. Don't try and jump right into that, though.

Now, DNS. DNS (Domain Name System) is by far the most difficult thing to understand. At the superficial level, it connects domain names and IP addresses. The DNS is what tells you the IP address -- the location -- of the server that www.twcenter.net is talking about. If you'd like a domain name, you should try and understand a little bit about DNS and, specifically, nameservers. If you're really up for a good challenge, and a rewarding one at that, try and learn how bind works.

If you'd like to avoid the server-side challenges, you can go for shared hosting. This is where you are allocated space on a totally pre-configured web server to use for your website. The disadvantage here is that you have little to no control over what software is used, but a lot of the burden of maintenance and whatnot is lifted off your shoulders, and is great if you're not confident or keen on low-level things.

You will need to purchase a domain from a domain registrar if that's what you want. I'm going to tick off quite a few people and say that the price is relatively negligible, and you might as well just go with somewhere good and reputable -- I've got a few with godaddy.com -- rather than hassle yourself over what amounts to, often, less than dollars a month.

Something that you'll need to use is FTP. FTP is File Transfer Protocol, and is used to get the website that you've made from your computer and onto your web host's server, to be shown on your website. There are a plethora of FTP clients out there, and, if you want the straight-up answer, I'll say use Filezilla if you're on Windows XP. I don't actually have a mouse at the moment, so it's a bit of a hassle for me to start linking you to things.

Bandwidth is a measure of how much data people have viewed from your website -- basically, a measure of traffic -- and is one of the key things to consider. Make your website and look at the average file size. You'll want to be able to transfer this size multiple times over. Often, actually, thousands at the least. If your page is 1kb, and you are expecting 5000 hits, then make sure you have paid for at least 5000kb of bandwidth. Most hosts will either cut you off or charge extortionate amounts for excess bandwidth. Similarly, you will want to make sure you have enough storage to keep the data on your website to begin with.

Before you go with any host, check its uptime! This is a good indication of the quality of their service, and will have a direct effect on your website. If a host has 95% uptime, that means that they are down 5% of the time. This is abysmal: Could you imagine Google being down for nearly seventy-five minutes a day? I'd say settle for nothing short of 99.9%, which is still 86 seconds a day, and make sure that they've given you a guarantee.

Lastly, if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. Hosts that offer unlimited anything are probably crap, overloaded and do not care about your site. The uptime will be sub-par, they'll be unreliable and the technical support will be utterly shite. Don't waste your time. You will, well and truly, get what you pay for.

You'll hear lots about coding HTML, CSS, XHTML and whatnot in different programs. Some people will say do it by hand, others will swear by WYSIWYG [What You See Is What You Get], but:

You're best off using whatever you're comfortable with, as Sim points out. You don't have to use Dreamweaver/Frontpage/Expression/whatever as a WYSIWYG editor, and they can be useful for generating a bunch of isolated code that would be a pain to type manually and which could than be inserted into your main project

One thing this does bring up, though, is that you really should have whatever server software your remote hosts uses installed on your development PC, and test everything on that before it goes live [This is where XAMPP and WAMP type things come in]. Uploading untested pages for public viewing can be a recipe for disaster

Quick review: HTTP, Apache, PHP, MySQL, DNS, domain names, domain registrars, FTP, bandwidth, storage, uptime,WYSIWYG


Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions on anything that I've mentioned and I'll do my best to get back to you. If I have time later tonight, I'll get some links going.

Best of luck with your site!
I added in some links. They're somewhat contextual, but should point you in the right direction.

[Juno]

I code by hand as well but use Expression for a quick visual when I need it. Also since I code xhtml/css I find the stylesheet feature of Expression handy (I'm much better at clicking than typing). In order to code by hand you have to fully understand the code and what the different tags mean and do. This takes a bit of time to learn and understand, so for those just starting out it's much easier to have a program manage all the tedious aspects like code formatting/syntax.

Another major headache in designing websites is cross browser support. Not all browsers handle and display markup the same way, which in turn can lead to some very frustrating and tricky problems. For the most part all major browsers are moving towards standards based rendering but they aren't 100% there yet.

No, you're better off learning everything yourself and coding by hand then relying on a cheap crutch.

P.S. - If I remember correctly, using XHTML and CSS because it's "web standards" like everyone has been gawking for the past few years actually goes against web standards.

I'll be damned if I waste my time looking for the link, though.

[LordEdmundBlackadder]

No, you're better off learning everything yourself and coding by hand then relying on a cheap crutch.

P.S. - If I remember correctly, using XHTML and CSS because it's "web standards" like everyone has been gawking for the past few years actually goes against web standards.

I'll be damned if I waste my time looking for the link, though.

http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

Using XHTML and CSS does not violate web standards, per se. There are very specific implementation issues that pedants are drawn to like flies, but, on the whole, they are very effective and adhere to the vast majority of web standards.

I invite you to open the discussion in a separate thread.

[Simetrical]

No, you're better off learning everything yourself and coding by hand then relying on a cheap crutch.

For a static web page, there's no big problem with Dreamweaver that I know of. (Of course, how many static web pages are there these days?) Have you actually ever used it? I haven't, but I've watched my brother a little, and the way he uses it seems to be more like an IDE for hand-editing than some kind of WYSIWYG thing (although doubtless the latter is possible as well).

P.S. - If I remember corrctly, using XHTML and CSS because it's "web standards" like everyone has been gawking for the past few years actually goes against web standards.

I'll be damned if I waste my time looking for the link, though.

No. It's not. XHTML and CSS do not per se contradict any other web standards, except possibly on some ludicrous technicality.

http://www.hixie.ch/advocacy/xhtml

An interesting read. Ultimately, it's true that there's really no reason currently to bother with XHTML at all, except if you want to mix in MathML or SVG or something using XML namespaces (which has poor support, e.g., IE doesn't support it at all). It's just kind of a trendy thing to do, frankly, which ends up working about the same as using HTML 4.01 explicitly. It's technically less standards-compliant, certainly.

Sending documents with XHTML MIME types, though, ugh. You'd better be sure your script generates perfectly well-formed content. Admin who only knows a little HTML makes an innocent change to templates? Whoops, the entire site breaks, and he can't get back to the admin panel to change it back. Hope you have a recovery mode, or know how to forge POST requests!

[Simetrical]

I would say 99% uptime is unreasonably low. That's still 14.4 minutes down every day. 99.9% is 86 seconds down per day average (or about 45 minutes a month), which is about as little as could be reasonably expected.

[LordEdmundBlackadder]

Thank you, Simetrical, I've updated my original post accordingly.

It's also worth noting that the uptime is an average. Don't assume your site will be down just because they say they can only guarantee 99.9%: that's just their worst-case-scenario. You'll probably have many months of more than 99.9%

[jimmy spong]

dreamviewer is far best ...

[sapi]

No, you're better off learning everything yourself and coding by hand then relying on a cheap crutch.

Nup, you're best off using whatever you're comfortable with, as Sim points out. You don't have to use dreamweaver/frontpage/expression/whatever as a WYSIWYG editor, and they can be useful for generating a bunch of isolated code that would be a pain to type manually and which could than be inserted into your main project

One thing this does bring up, though, is that you really should have whatever server software your remote hosts uses installed on your development PC, and test everything on that before it goes live. Uploading untested pages for public viewing can be a recipe for disaster

[LordEdmundBlackadder]

Nup, you're best off using whatever you're comfortable with, as Sim points out. You don't have to use dreamweaver/frontpage/expression/whatever as a WYSIWYG editor, and they can be useful for generating a bunch of isolated code that would be a pain to type manually and which could than be inserted into your main project

One thing this does bring up, though, is that you really should have whatever server software your remote hosts uses installed on your development PC, and test everything on that before it goes live. Uploading untested pages for public viewing can be a recipe for disaster

Very correct.

I've quoted you in my post, I hope you don't mind. I made some minor grammatical edits and did some linking.

An interesting read. Ultimately, it's true that there's really no reason currently to bother with XHTML at all, except if you want to mix in MathML or SVG or something using XML namespaces (which has poor support, e.g., IE doesn't support it at all). It's just kind of a trendy thing to do, frankly, which ends up working about the same as using HTML 4.01 explicitly. It's technically less standards-compliant, certainly.

Sending documents with XHTML MIME types, though, ugh. You'd better be sure your script generates perfectly well-formed content. Admin who only knows a little HTML makes an innocent change to templates? Whoops, the entire site breaks, and he can't get back to the admin panel to change it back. Hope you have a recovery mode, or know how to forge POST requests!

I must admit that I haven't tried it myself yet, but it appears that a valid XHTML page is well-suited to XSLT and other XML-based technologies. Indeed, you'll want to be turning out solid XHTML if you're going to incorporate it into a web service. As I said, though, that's something I haven't actually tried myself.