I just found out last night that the Epson photo site I’ve been using is shutting down in a couple months. I’m sick of these free sites, plus I want to be able to post more than just photos. So I’ve decided it’s time to finally get my own website. Unfortunately I don’t know squat about this stuff. Any advice, suggestions or recommendations are welcome.
I’d suggest heading to the library and getting a kids book on HTML, as I’m told they tend to be far more understandable than the “HTML for dummies” kinds of books. Or you can use a high-end program like Adobe’s “Go Live” and muddle through unsuccessfully to the point of frustration, give up on updating your pages, then look for time (and inspiration) to head to the library to look for a kids book on HTML.
Guess which stage I’m at…
(The simple-to-understand software I originally used to create my web pages doesn’t work with Mac OSX. 
)
The other thing you’ll need is storage space, which Bob offers here with his “Freight Shed” membership and an FTP program to manage it. I use “Transmit,” which is very simple to use, and cheap ($30ish?) “Fetch” is another popular FTP program.
Later,
K
Ray go to Angelfire.com they will help you set up a free website! Everything there you need take a look at the one i built by clicking on the link on this message you can set up blogs, link everything together! Take a look at mine and you can see what you can do probably do more than i did im not computer savy but was able to produce this, so you can see its not real hard if i can do it. Any help let me know ill try to help you. On setting up a blog you can also set up a picture album page or pages.
Jerry,
That’s fine and dandy, but some of us really dislike the ads and all that.
Ray,
See what Bob offers, the rest you can learn.
I went with 1and1 - http://order.1and1.com/ The package I have gives me a couple of domain names and also includes Net Objects Fusion - which is a what you see is what you get editor. Easy to use, easy to rearrange web pages. No HTML knowledge necessary. More space than I need (120 GB).
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Jerry,That’s fine and dandy, but some of us really dislike the ads and all that.
Ray,
See what Bob offers, the rest you can learn.
Agreed - I stopped clicking on anglefire and similar links years ago. Too much bad stuff besides the ads.
Bob’s freight sheds will work well if you have a domain name or don’t want one. And you get to help support LSC in the process. If you need full service hosting, including domains check out 1&1 (1and1.com). They have packages as low as $5/month with tons of space. I’ve been using them for over a year for work and personal and have been very happy with them.
Jon
Edit - I see Bruce posted the same recommendation.
Great minds think alike, Jon. 
I got with them in 2004 when they got started. They had a special deal to sign up and get three years for free.
You could also get a domain name for pretty cheap and host it here at LSC; I suspect there are some decent low cost programs around that would help you create a website.
Well, I sign up with the webhost service my brother uses. Got 1500gb of storage and 15,000gb/m bandwidth. I guess that’s good. And I got my own domain name – raydunakin.com.
Now I just have to figure out how to put together a website. I’ll try using iWeb, since it comes with my Mac and is supposed to be really easy. Also my brother directed me to a free program for creating online photo albums, that might come in handy too.
Ray,
I had a website for a number of years. Some great people that hang out here tried to teach me how to manage it myself. I didn’t enjoy the process and it took away from my train time. The “Freight Shed” here is a great value and is constantly backed up. You just put it together like loading a picture for this “Forum”. For me, it works great!
Ray Dunakin said:
Well, I sign up with the webhost service my brother uses. Got 1500gb of storage and 15,000gb/m bandwidth. I guess that's good. And I got my own domain name -- raydunakin.com.Now I just have to figure out how to put together a website. I’ll try using iWeb, since it comes with my Mac and is supposed to be really easy. Also my brother directed me to a free program for creating online photo albums, that might come in handy too.
Ray I knkow you have looked at my site. I did all the HTML myself. If you need a hand feel free to let me kjnow and I will see if i can help you out. I’m better at the HTML then track layout design.
Ray Dunakin said:
Well, I sign up with the webhost service my brother uses. Got 1500gb of storage and 15,000gb/m bandwidth. I guess that's good. And I got my own domain name -- raydunakin.com.Now I just have to figure out how to put together a website. I’ll try using iWeb, since it comes with my Mac and is supposed to be really easy. Also my brother directed me to a free program for creating online photo albums, that might come in handy too.
Coding is like trains - if you want to get good at it, there’s no substitute for putting in the hours.
Once you get a feel for what you’re doing, look for examples, examples, examples. You’ll find the good and the bad, but you’ll only get to know the difference by experimentation. Does that sound like trains, too?
Good to see you bogging in and having a go!
Ray…sign up for a Freightshed here at LSC…$20 per year with 100 megs of storage…Its not just for photos…it will hold HTML pages too!
A lot of ISP contracts come with “free” webspace (actually included in the contract price). I use a free WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) program called Nvu. http://nvu.com/ It has a built in FTP as well.
I’ve been working on the design of my website the past few days, using Apple’s iWeb. Great app, VERY easy to use! I’m pleased with the way it’s turning out so far. Of course, I still have to upload it and find out if it actually works online, but I’m feeling pretty optomistic about it.
Having a real website instead of a bunch of albums is going to be nice. I can add a lot more info besides just the pics, and organize it better. Also nice is not being limited to 100mb like on the Epson site. I started butting up against that limited some time ago, and the past year or more I’ve had to delete something everytime I wanted to upload something new.
Ray Dunakin said:
I've been working on the design of my website the past few days, using Apple's iWeb. Great app, VERY easy to use! I'm pleased with the way it's turning out so far. Of course, I still have to upload it and find out if it actually works online, but I'm feeling pretty optomistic about it.Having a real website instead of a bunch of albums is going to be nice. I can add a lot more info besides just the pics, and organize it better. Also nice is not being limited to 100mb like on the Epson site. I started butting up against that limited some time ago, and the past year or more I’ve had to delete something everytime I wanted to upload something new.
Ray,
Does iWeb have a preview function that opens in the browser? If so can you select which browser? NOF allows that and it’s really handy.
The other thing I usually do is run a directory on the host that I use for testing. There are still surprises, but they don’t interfer with what has been published on the working site.