Building a website - Where to start

dominatrix1

dominatrix1

dominatrix1

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10 Jan 2006
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483
Hello ,
I am trying to build a website for a little project I am working on - It is basically involves linking up with facebook so I can get people profile page and also things like scheduling and arranging meetings etc.

Am looking to to bootstrap to begin with and then build from there - I am competent with photoshop but no expert.

What do you suggest I use to start building my site ?? any recommended tutorials

Thanks
 
May I suggest Joomla.

http://www.joomla.org/


It's dead easy and there are thousands of free extentensions and modules. You can get help too using their forums.

http://forum.joomla.org/


I've just build a very straight forward one for a group of childminders. how have diaries, calandars events etc.. They also have a private area. Version 1.7 has some great security features :) Fb and other social plugins are available too.

www.chelmsfordchildminders.co.uk

My own website uses Joomla 1.5 but I've heavily bespoked it making migration hard now.. but it still works for the purpose it serves )
 
that looks good - I still havent decided on my name yet and dont want to commit into buying a domain name just yet - what would you suggest hosting it on for free and then one I have a name I can buy the domian name and transfer ?
 
To be honest, buying and hosting a domain doesn't cost that much.. I paid £6 for the domain name and it's parked at huddysworld which is hosted by Crystal Hosting. That costs me about £40pa which is their second priced tier with some extra bandwidth thrown in too. I actually have 4 websites running from one domain.. Bargain really..

It's dead handy imo..

You can always buy a temporary name whilst you build your website and change it anytime when you choose.
 
dominatrix1 said:
that looks good - I still havent decided on my name yet and dont want to commit into buying a domain name just yet - what would you suggest hosting it on for free and then one I have a name I can buy the domian name and transfer ?
Click to expand...

Just get WAMP and run the website locally whilst you are developing it.
 
Not to shoot Huddy's post down, but Joomla IMO is a vastly overrated and frankly convoluted CMS compared to Wordpress.

Try both out and see which one you get to grips with fastest. WAMP as suggested is good for this, but hosting is cheap and usually includes a free domain name if you can think of an url you'd like.
 
gord said:
Not to shoot Huddy's post down, but Joomla IMO is a vastly overrated and frankly convoluted CMS compared to Wordpress.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I've ranted about this very topic on several occasions, for the life of me I still don't know why people use Joomla. In short, you'll get on much better with WordPress, easier to use, MUCH faster and the plugins are of a much better quality and normally free.
 
Edward01 said:
Agreed. I've ranted about this very topic on several occasions, for the life of me I still don't know why people use Joomla. In short, you'll get on much better with WordPress, easier to use, MUCH faster and the plugins are of a much better quality and normally free.
Click to expand...

I can't say I have had a positive experience with joomla. Massively complex to allow complete control over every aspect of a large website and very slow in comparison to other CMS's.

Its getting on a bit now and has been showing its age for a while now.
 
Never really got on with Joomla either, over complicated and a lot of the good addons/extensions are commercial. Of course this is both good and bad as you should/would get commercial level support.

Wordpress has it's place and is a great tool but it's one drawback is the plugin system, I know they are making attempts at sorting it out. Some are let's say not well written. They can be slow and/or insecure.

If your site is going to be large then I wouldn't recommend Wordpress myself.

There are many other CMS's out there designed, developed and optimised to do specific tasks. So you don't need multiple plugins installed to do what a cms and not a blog needs to do.
 
Ha! I looked at this topic yesterday and saw that Joomla was recommend by Huddy so thought "meh, he doesn't need another recommendation to confuse things".

But when I saw this thread again today I remembered how much I actually DESPISED using Joomla, both trying it out in my own time and in a professional setting, so thought I'd jump in an point out Wordpress.

Looks like you guys have already done that.

Anyway, another Wordpress recommendation from me.
 
I'd go with wordpress as well. Plugins are great if you don't use and abuse them, the more you have the slower the site gets! (within reason)
 
I went into a web designers yesterday and spoke to them about my idea HOWEVER upon receiving the quote - I was quoted £23,100 which is WAY over my budget. Would it be completly unrealistic to build the website with the same functionality myself??
 
The only reason you've been quoted 23K is because your idea obviously involves some serious bespoke work and application integration.

It's never completely unrealistic to build your own. Google was built from the ground up. But you need the skills and time to do it.

Put bluntly, downgrade your idea or upgrade your skills if you want to begin by yourself.
 
What about using e-lance to build the website - is this unrealistic seems as if you can get them built relativly cheaply although I can see there may be problems .

has anyone had any experience in doing this ?
 
In my experience yes you can but finding someone who
a) turns the work up
b) turns up the work to your spec correctly
c) Doesn't dissapear as soon as they have the money, never to be heard from again! No support etc..
Is the problem.

For a quote like that, there was either a lot of bespoke work to be done, as Gordy says above.
Or they didn't want the work, either too busy with other stuff, or they didn't fancy the project. Happens more often than you think.

So either
Learn the skills yourself, takes time and someone could beat you to it.
Find someone and pay them.
Find someone and partner with them.

But before you do any of those get at least two more quotes just so you know for sure.
 
So for someone looking to get started in building websites etc would WP be a good place? Learning html/css at the same time so I figure I could dive in and out and leanr as I go but at the same time build a cracking website? Eventually want to be able to build from scratch myself.

I want to build a website to showcase my product reviews for a retailer and also link to them for people who want to click through and buy. Could I do this with WP?

p.s aaron I like your sig, spot on.
 
I'd personally suggest really learning html/css to start with. They're kind of essential if you want to build websites yourself without having to resort to using themes built by other people. They're not difficult to learn and it won't take long for you to have a working understanding.
 
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