How does one create a website?

[Buckle-meister]

Dear all,

For quite some time now I've thought on and off that I'd like to create my own website (non-audio related - don't worry Gene/Clint ). Actually it'd be to allow others to see various landscape photos I've taken over the last couple of years, though naturally I'd be looking to update it as more became available. The website wouldn't need to be anything fancy, just the basics at first, say a landscape image with right/left arrow buttons beneath for the user to progress forwards/backwards respectively. As I learned more I'd certainly want to 'tart' the site up though.

There's just the very small problem of where to begin. Can you, yes YOU help?

I believe web pages are written in Java (true?) which is a language I have no experiance in though as I have Visual Studio it is available to me. I am very familiar with Visual Basic, though being Basic, it's hardly difficult in the first place. What I'm trying to indicate here is that whilst I may not know Java (assuming that's what's required), I don't consider myself a complete novice at programming and so figure that perhaps I'll not find it too difficult to jump into.

So, again, can you help by letting me know exactly what is required to get a website up and running, any costs involved, any books recommended etc etc? Any help would be very much appreciated and who knows, you may just one day see the fruits of my labour!

Cheers.

 

[jaxvon]

Websites are based on html (the language). Many also use cascading style sheets (CSS) which make for elegant web design. Beyond that, you start getting into PHP and such.

Starting a website shouldn't be *that* hard, but if you'd like to share photographs with people, I would suggest that you start with a Flickr account, perhaps even a premium one to allow for more transfer.

www.flickr.com

 

[JVC]

Yeah, for showing pictures, you just need a host for them. A couple more options are:
http://www.webshots.com/
http://photobucket.com/register.php
If you want to post a picture here, in your thread, Photobucket will let you. Webshots won't. Both places are good for letting friends go there, and see your pics. Don't really need a website for that, unless you're selling pics, and want to do the transactions on your site.

 

[Buckle-meister]

Starting a website shouldn't be *that* hard, but if you'd like to share photographs with people, I would suggest that you start with a Flickr account...

Thanks Jaxvon/JVC, but I'm already aware of Flickr and Photobucket. The latter is what I currently use to post pictures here on Audioholics when necessary.

No, I'm actually interested in my own website/page, though not for the purpose of selling the photos (not yet anyway!). Call it something I've an interest in doing just for the sake of it.

Websites are based on html (the language). Many also use cascading style sheets (CSS) which make for elegant web design. Beyond that, you start getting into PHP and such.

Ok, why does CSS 'make for elegant web design'? Can you give me an example of it to see (provide a link to a site with it?)? Beyond 'what' does one start getting into PHP, and what is PHP anyway? Any recommended books on this thread's topic?

 

[AKAJohnDoe]

You need a location, which is both an address and some space. These can be obtained separately or together. The address, or URL, can be a Domain as well. Domains are fairly inexpensive. The space, or Web Hosting Facilities, are often thrown in for free with your ISP, DSL, eMail, broadband, etc service. You can usually redirect a Domain URL to your Web Hosting Facility's URL.

You can create web pages in Word and save them as Web pages (.htm files). You may want to rename these to .txt files, edit them, and rename them back to .htm files, but you will need to know a little about HTML to do that. There are, of course, much more elegant tools for web design and construction, but for getting started, almost everyone can find a copy of Word.

You will probably need to know the basics of FTP and have an FTP client to transfer the HTML files from your PC to your web hosting site. There are some free ones that run as FireFox extensions.

www.AKAJohnDoe.com

 

[sholling]

1and1.com offers very low cost hosting and free tools.

 

[Buckle-meister]

Good stuff so far!

You need a location, which is both an address and some space. These can be obtained separately or together.

Space...for the photos people would view? Is that where I'd 'upload' the photos to?

The address, or URL, can be a Domain as well.

Ok, the URL bit I think I understand. This is like www.Audioholics isn't it? The Domain...is that the .com extension at the end? If so, what does the Domain actually do. If not, what does the Domain actually do?

Domains are fairly inexpensive. The space, or Web Hosting Facilities, are often thrown in for free with your ISP, DSL, eMail, broadband, etc service.

So if the Domain and space are relatively inexpensive, do any costs lie mainly in the buying of the URL?

You can usually redirect a Domain URL to your Web Hosting Facility's URL.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean or why it's a good thing to do what you suggest above. Could you please elaborate?

You can create web pages in Word and save them as Web pages (.htm files)...There are, of course, much more elegant tools for web design and construction, but for getting started, almost everyone can find a copy of Word.

Yes, I have Word on my P.C. If I get this up and running, eventually I'd like to polish it up a bit but that'll come later. Learn to walk before I run methinks.

You will probably need to know the basics of FTP and have an FTP client to transfer the HTML files from your PC to your web hosting site. There are some free ones that run as FireFox extensions.

FTP. I think I used this once to transfer (large) files from computer to computer ('twas a long, long time ago and I was more or less typing what I was told to by someone who knew what to do). It's done using a DOS window isn't it?

I know almost nothing of this. Any suggestions of where/how I learn more about it?

1and1.com offers very low cost hosting and free tools.

Thank you.

All: I've just done a quick Google and, as expected, there're a number of books on 'How to create your own website'. Has anybody any they'd specifically recommend?

 

[MDS]

To have a website you need (at a minimum):
- a computer running a webserver, like Apache or an application server like Websphere.
- at least two dedicated machines to serve as name servers (DNS service - to map a URL to a numeric IP address).
- Register a domain name like www.mysite.com.
- Create the web pages using static HTML or Dynamic HTML (combination of HTML and Javascript or other script). If you have an application server you can use Java, Servlets, PHP or any number of other tools.

Now, do you have a spare $100K or more to buy all that infrastructure and pay for access to the internet backbone?

Not likely. So you use a web hosting service. Your ISP may have packages for web hosting and there are a number of companies that provide the service. [Even Time Warner Cable offers a limited web site when you subscribe to their broadband internet package]

The web hosting site has all the web servers, name servers, and storage space for each site and you pay a monthly fee. They take care of registering your domain and usually provide tools for you to create your pages and a means to update the pages on the site. Sometimes the tools are fairly advanced and sometimes you have a barebones package (for the programmers) and you have to FTP your files to the server and configure the site yourself.

Google for 'web hosting' and you will be overwhelmed with the number of companies that provide the service. If the site won't be overly complex the first place to inquire is the company that currently provides your internet access.

 

[sploo]

Hi Robbie,

To give you a 'step-by-step', here's roughly how I do (did) it:

1. Went to http://www.pair.com/ and purchased one of their web hosting packages
2. Registered a domain name using their registration service https://www.pairnic.com/
3. Created my pages using Dreamweaver and various art packages
4. Uploaded my pages/images to the area on the computer I rent from Pair

Step 1 gives you some space (a directory) on a computer, which has an IP address (e.g. 66.249.93.104). At the time of writing, you'll find that'll take you to google.

Step 2 links the domain name you specify to the IP address on your box*.

You can hand code HTML, but a package like Dreamweaver makes webpage creation easy. IMHO MS Word is not really a good package for this job.

If you want to make a page with images, then HTML is sufficient. Javascript allows you to embed program code into a page, which is then processed by the client's browser (good for 'realtime' things, and stuff that allows interactive elements).

Some web packages allow you to use backend languages like PHP or ASP - this allows processing to happen on the server side, like getting information from a database, which is formed into a webpage before being sent to the client.

I don't think Pair are exactly the cheapest host around, but I've found them to be consistently excellent, and their support pages answer most questions you'll have.

* You can register more names and link them to your pages whenever you want.

 

[AKAJohnDoe]

I agree that there are much better tools than Word (e.g.: Dreamweaver), but who doesn't have Word to get started?

I registered a domain, redirected it to my ISP web space. Built some rudimentary initial pages in Word, saved to HTML format, FTPed them up. All done between morning espresso and lunch.

www.AKAJohnDoe.com

 

[Buckle-meister]

Wow, this is all very interesting stuff. Thanks everyone!

...you have to FTP your files to the server and configure the site yourself.

Is the reason it must be FTP'd so that you yourself are directly (albeit remotely) building the website? In other words, the web hoster maybe providing a domain and allowing you to link it to an I.P. address with space but "that's all the service yer gettin' fer yer money mate!"? Does that about sum it up?

Google for 'web hosting' and you will be overwhelmed with the number of companies that provide the service.

Indeed, I am. I clicked on one of the first and for around £14/$8 a year you get 150MB of free space and a free domain name. £14's peanuts!

Step 1 gives you some space (a directory) on a computer, which has an IP address (e.g. 66.249.93.104). At the time of writing, you'll find that'll take you to google.

Ha! I didn't know you could paste an I.P addresses into the address bar at the top of Internet Explorer and jump straight to a site! (I usually type "www.blah blah")

So what's to stop someone FTPing junk into a randomly selected I.P. address which, if the FTP works, would presumably fill someone's site with said junk?

Step 2 links the domain name you specify to the IP address on your box

Right, so a domain is just the glossy name that covers the I.P.address? As an example, I'm assuming that the Audioholics website is basically just a number (like 66.249.93.104), but its domain is www.Audioholics.com and when you type that into the address bar in Internet Explorer some kind of search must take place ("finding site" on the bottom bar) until the link to the I.P. address is found and voilla! You're there!

Correct? If so, then presumably pasting in the I.P. address of the site (if known) jumps straight to it without having to search for it via a domain name, i.e. this method is the most direct. Correct?

You can hand code HTML, but a package like Dreamweaver makes webpage creation easy. IMHO MS Word is not really a good package for this job.

Hmm, now that's a bit pricey. Maybe I'll just stick with Word for the moment.

I registered a domain, redirected it to my ISP web space. Built some rudimentary initial pages in Word, saved to HTML format, FTPed them up. All done between morning espresso and lunch.

Yep, I took a look at that. Seems perfect as a beginning for me. Thank you very much for taking the (short ) time; I really appreciate it.

So, still no recommendations for any books? Don't you have any, or are they simply not worth bothering about?

 

[AKAJohnDoe]

Is the reason it must be FTP'd ...

FTP is File Transfer Protocol or File Transfer Program. It is a generally accepted way of moving files from one computer to another. The form of the file needs to be maintained during transfer. For example, HTML pages can usually be transferred as ASCII (or text) whereas images such as JPGs need to be transferred as BINARY.

So what's to stop someone FTPing junk into a randomly selected I.P. address which, if the FTP works, would presumably fill someone's site with said junk?

Security. The site receiving the files usually has to be signed into. FTP programs handle the userid/password handshake.

Right, so a domain is just the glossy name that covers the I.P.address?

A domain is a registered usage of a URL. DNS (Domain Name Services) is what associates URLs with IP addresses (among a few other things). You do not need a domain of your own if you are OK with your website URL being something like http://mysite.myisp.com/myuserid/myhomepage.htm.

So, still no recommendations for any books? Don't you have any, or are they simply not worth bothering about?

I would expect that there are some excellent books out there. I do not know of any though. I've been doing "computers" since the mid-1970's, so for me HTML looks a lot like the old DCF/GML or "Script", as it should since it it just another markup language (Hyper Text Markup Language).

 

[MDS]

Is the reason it must be FTP'd so that you yourself are directly (albeit remotely) building the website? In other words, the web hoster maybe providing a domain and allowing you to link it to an I.P. address with space but "that's all the service yer gettin' fer yer money mate!"? Does that about sum it up?

Yep. You would be provided an FTP account that points to the root of the space allocated to you and then you can create any directory structure you want.

So what's to stop someone FTPing junk into a randomly selected I.P. address which, if the FTP works, would presumably fill someone's site with said junk?

That would only be possible with Anonymous FTP (no username/password required) and only if the account were configured to allow 'put' (ie upload files) or TFTP (trivial FTP) which is a major security risk and not used ever.

Right, so a domain is just the glossy name that covers the I.P.address?

Domain names are for humans. DNS servers (Domain Name Service) map IP addresses to domain names and vice-versa. There are 13 root dns servers on the backbone of the internet and every server must have a DNS server to answer queries like what is the IP address of www.mysite.com. The search will start at your web host's dns servers and if it doesn't know the answer it will forward the request up the hieararchy until it gets an answer (and then it will cache the result so it can answer directly the next time).

Just for fun, if you have Windows XP, open a comman prompt and type:
nslookup www.audioholics.com

Here is what I get:
Server: dns-cac-lb-01.texas.
Address: 24.93.41.125

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: www.audioholics.com
Address: 64.40.106.203

That means the dns server dns-cac-lb-01.texas whose address is 24.93.41.125 answered the query and returned the info that www.audioholics.com maps to the numerical IP address of 64.40.106.203. It is a 'non-authoritative' answer because it had the info cached and did not get the answer from the name server specifically assigned to handle queries for www.audioholics.com.

 

[AKAJohnDoe]

Just for fun, if you have Windows XP, open a command prompt and type:

netstat -ao

That is usually quite an eye-opener for most folks, too!

 

[sploo]

Robbie,

I think others have answered the questions you asked on the info I provided... so I won't repeat them!

However, I really wouldn't use Word for anything other than the most simple page. Creating pages of any complexity really requires an understanding of how HTML works - it's more a rough description of what a page should look like, rather than a perfect representation.

This means that what you create will look different depending on the client's browser type, browser version, screen resolution, installed fonts, operating system, operating system version etc. etc.

This gets even more important if you start to look at style sheets or more complex layouts, as they're handled in subtly different ways by different browsers (standards, we've heard of them).

I expect there are some cheaper/free webpage design tools around - I'd suggest doing some searching.

 

[mfabien]

For years I've been using CuteFTP for file transfer:

http://www.globalscape.com/products/ftp_clients.asp

Microsoft Front Page is a wonderful WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get html editor.

Or,

You can get (a free trial period) editor with prompted html tags:

http://www.download.com/40tude-HTML/3000-2048_4-1540401.html?tag=lst-1-1

 

[Buckle-meister]

There are 13 root dns servers on the backbone of the internet...

Are these scattered around the globe or are they all in one, presumably secure, room (I believe the internet originally derived from the military)?

Just for fun, if you have Windows XP, open a comman prompt and type: nslookup www.audioholics.com

I did this at work and got the same non-authauritive result you did. However for the other bit I got "Cannot find server address for address (insert I.P. address here): Non-existant domain.

Presumably this was because the root directory was H:\, one of the company I work for's server drives (i.e. not a drive local on my computer)?

netstat -ao That is usually quite an eye-opener for most folks, too!

I get a long list of text, the end of each line being "Listening" (sounds ominous!). So what's this all about?

...here's roughly how I do (did) it: Went to http://www.pair.com/ and purchased one of their web hosting packages...

Isn't there a danger that if the company you buy a web hosting package from goes bust, you also lose your website since it's physically located on their servers?

 

[masak_aer]

For years I've been using CuteFTP for file transfer:

http://www.globalscape.com/products/ftp_clients.asp

Microsoft Front Page is a wonderful WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get html editor.

Or,

You can get (a free trial period) editor with prompted html tags:

http://www.download.com/40tude-HTML/3000-2048_4-1540401.html?tag=lst-1-1

I used Frontpage when i used to have a website. It is fairly easy and straightforward. Since it is coded in html, you can use the source code and use other software when you think Frontpage is inadequate. Uploading pictures is also very easy.
If you are thinking about creating website for pictures, I'd recommend bigger server storage. The reason is that you want to post high quality pictures than can easily pass 8MB/picture.
I don't see why you need to worry about a hosting service is busted since you have the source code with you. All you might need to do is re-upload your pictures/data to the new one. You aren't going to lose you domain either. Hosting services are fairly cheap right now so i think you won't find a problem. Just my .02....

 

[AKAJohnDoe]

However, I really wouldn't use Word for anything other than the most simple page.

This means that what you create will look different depending on the client's browser type, browser version, screen resolution, installed fonts, operating system, operating system version etc. etc.

I agree with this. Once you have the basics and mechanics of it, you will want (need) something far better than Word.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I have used FrontPage for years. It supports CSS (do some homework on that) and is as easy to design webpages in as it is to write a paper in Microsoft Word. Biggest difference is that FrontPage HTML actually looks halfway decent while Word's HTML looks horrid.

I personally have run things a bunch of different ways over time. I am paying for two different places to host my web sites and for the third, I'm actually using the free space that Cox gives me.

It's a really great thing: Check with your internet service provider (ISP) and see if you get free web space! It doesn't cost you a cent to get things started and you can see how it all works.

Check it out:
http://members.cox.net/avintegrated/ is my free space
http://www.avintegrated.com is the URL I purchased that I point to the above URL.

I spent a few bucks to get the URL for 10 years, but the space I don't pay anything for. It's FrontPage compliant so all I do is design the site in FrontPage, then I click the 'publish' button and it automatically uploads all the photos and stuff to the site.

FYI: There are tons of resources out there for HTML design. The 'DUMMIES' series of books has HTML For Dummies available and you can be walked, step by step, through every aspect of setting up a website. I would ignore CSS and everything else from the start. Just do some really, really basic stuff and get a feel for it. Once you begin to get the basics (less than a day of work) you can start to let your imagination take you where you want to go.

Things that get much more difficult are laying out graphical backgrounds that combine multiple elements into a single, seamless web page. A single image may be broken into dozens of tiny pieces then jigsawed back together to form a single seamless page. This is very common on more corporate sites that have some graphics in the page and I believe, once you understand CSS, this becomes fairly easy to implement.