Help needed in building and maintianing my own website

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Deleted member 6068

Deleted member 6068

I have been approached by a friend of myn who wants me to build him a website simular to www.Rightmove.co.uk.

he requires the following

He wants a website designed that is very simular to www.rightmove.co.uk
he needs to be able to maintain the website himself ie: uploading, changing
he wants to be able to give clients the ability to upload pictures and description's through a login system, but also before it is published to the website he needs to be able to view and authourise the content they are uploading before it is published.
he also needs to be able to upload documents in pdf format.

the problem is i have never done anything like this but would love the chance to receive advice and learn how to design this website for him.

he has offered to purchase any software needed and also fund what ever is required for me to do this.

if anyone could give me advice and recommend various software in order to do this.

many thanks

steve
 
Personally I like .net, if you are starting out then the included controls and membership framework can help you get neat site up fairly quickly. Another plus is that you can use the free Web Developer version of Visual Studio if you don't want to fork out for the Full version.

Otherwise there are loads of great open source CMS packages for most the languages out there, usually fairly easy to extend too!

I guess it depends on how much of a learning curve and time you want to spend, if you really want to build something from scratch then in the end you have a perfectly customised site and a nice sense of achievement!
 
Thanks will have a read through, never done anything like this i mainly just build comps for friends and fam and do the occasional install of windows but apart from that i just mess with my own pc which i have taken a holiday from for the past couple of years and now want to get back into it again.

thanks

steve
 
Paul11 said:
not to be negative, but would you say you have skills to do this or enough time to learn them ?
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I was wondering the same thing. An undertaking like this isn't something you can just bang up in Dreamweaver design view.

It's entirely possible to do but if you don't know any programming languages, you're going to find it is going to take you quite the amount of time to do it.
 
possibly not thats why i came here for advice on what i will need before i tell him yes or no i have got a while before he will need the website so the sooner i start the better.
if it turns out i do not have the knowledge or learning capacity to do what e wants then at least i have learnt something from it.

thanks

steve
 
Digipro said:
possibly not thats why i came here for advice on what i will need before i tell him yes or no i have got a while before he will need the website so the sooner i start the better.
if it turns out i do not have the knowledge or learning capacity to do what e wants then at least i have learnt something from it.

thanks

steve
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If I'm honest I reckon it might be a big leap into programming. I'm sure you're more than capable of doing it, it's just the amount of time it would take for you to get yourself up to speed with all the requisite languages and technologies.

As a compromise I suppose you could work with him developing the design and have him outsource the programming to someone else?
 
How soon does he want it ready, it is a big undertaking.

I used to code in ASP.net but I switched over to PHP for development speed (more help and scripts out there).

There are a number of PHP scripts that have been written specifically for the property market, so your quickest / easiest option would be to find one of them.

See also:

http://www.webref.eu/php-tutorials.php

http://www.webref.eu/php-scripts.php

Knowing php is a great skill to have. I particularly like the forums at phpfreaks.com for help.

Rgds
 
radderfire said:
Knowing php is a great skill to have.
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Definitely true. I use PHP more than any other language on the web side.

What are your thoughts on PHP as a first language for him though? I'd be tempted to say starting on a strongly typed language would perhaps be best? I started out with ASP (classic) and PHP but I think my abilities shot through the roof when I started with Java at Uni. Just my 2 pence worth.
 
Thanks guys it is a big thing to take onas you all say and I'm glad you all show encouragement but also your being realistic he wants it ready for september dont know if that will be ebough time to learn how to do what he ask's but all your help is appreciated and have been looking at some of the links and advice you have all given me.

thanks

steve
 
If you're a quick learner and willing to put a lot of time in for it, it's possible.

To put it in perspective, my 'team' and I just spent the last month creating a website, Intranet and a custom CMS (based off of our own) for a medical insurance company. This took the 4 of us a full month of late nights and we're all quite skilled in our individual fields of expertise.
 
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looks like its gona take me a while, especially since i dont know anything about designing websites or programming .


will just have to read the material provided and see if i can get an understanding of whats involved and how to go about doing it .

thanks guys

steve
 
Yea, he says if i can come up with a website he likes then i will compensate me for doing it.
 
Digipro said:
Yea, he says if i can come up with a website he likes then i will compensate me for doing it.
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Uhoh. I'd be weary mate as that sounds like spec work which is something I would NEVER do. What happens when you spend hundreds of hours on it and he says 'oh, I don't like it, not paying'. (Though he should really be signing off on the design before you even type out your doctype.)

I'd run.
 
Digipro said:
Yea, he says if i can come up with a website he likes then i will compensate me for doing it.
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If you want to do a website "like rightmove" and do it properly, with little or no design/development experience you're going to have two outcomes:

1. The site looks and works crap, has flaws/bugs and needs overhauling from day 1.

2. The site looks good and works good, but you've just put 40hours/week for several months into it and getting "compensation" from a friend.

Neither are worth it. If you want to start off designing/developing then you've picked a mammoth task that would take a professional several weeks at the very least and they would be charging about £250/day.
 
i would say its def not worth it, unless you have loads of time and nothing better to do and want to learn it anyway

you will never be paid for the amount time you need to put in to it

better is to find some proffesionals to do it and act as a project manager and get your mate to pay them directly

sounds like he is trying to get something cheap and no offense to you but with your lack of skills and like of time, in this case cheap = not so good.
 
He would make it worth my while and I'm aware that if he dont like it i could end up with nothing, but then again i would have the knowledge of how to biuld and design websites and work from there so it would not be a total loss.
 
Why not start off by reading some tutorials on building a basic CMS, or interacting with a database using php? I'm sure you'll get an idea of the task at hand. I remember a few years ago in my first web dev job, I got thrown in deep end with an e-commerce site. Was totally out of my depth at that point, did learn a lot.

It all depends how long you want to spend, as you'll enevitably have to spend a lot longer just learning the basics. But making a site is a huge area. Have personally done a copuple of small sites for a friend. Even though I'd known him for years, I still drew up a list of specfific things I was going to do for him and got him to sign this. If you're doing the designt too, get him to 'sign off' the design before you continue too.
 
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