What content do I need?

What can you put on your website?  Anything!  Pictures of your vacation, videos of you feeding your cat, information on how to do something you're knowledgeable about.  Most people stick to one thing.  Like my friend Dave, he just goes on vacation and reviews it.  If he has to go out of state, he takes pictures of anything interesting and reviews the sites and attractions, sometimes uncovering unknown history, or sometimes revealing and testing local myths.  Needless to say that supplies his website with enough content to be interesting to a mass audience, especially people from where he goes.  That's why he advertises his website on his vehicle, smart. 

If you like to doodle, you can put scans or pictures of your drawings online for the world to see and rate.  This can be a good way to meet friends and to set up long lasting relationships.  If writing is your thing put up all your stories, prose, and poems.  Writing fan-fiction and original novels can be fun and rewarding while your community helps you do so.  If you just like to play video games try saying what level your own, with pictures to make it professional, and discuss your journey through the game.

Costs of operating a domain

Most people think websites are for big guys with unlimited pockets and the ability to expend all they want for a site.  The truth is it's dirt cheap.  How much do you think it costs to run an actual .com site?  Well forget it because it can be as cheap as $4 a month.  Most big named companies (godaddy) charge between $4-13, a month for the site.  You can do anything with that.  There aren't hidden costs for extra features unless you want a merchant site.  The reputable guys give you unlimited bandwith whatever you paid, meaning the cheap sites still get the same service.  Unless you want SSL service or extreme hosting options, it stays this cheap. 

Now, sometimes your name for your site will already be owned or parked by someone.  In this case, you will have to buy it from them...or come up with a new name.  That it the only case where you should spend lots of money on a site.  Usually that won't be the case though since your idea is original and personalized, like daveshangout.com or something.  And just because your first choice name isn't available, doesn't mean your site will suck.  Just come up with a witty new name that your viewers will both relate to and find easy to type.  You don't want a domain name with contractions or twenty letters.  You don't want to use acronyms for words or phrases in your name, as this can be confusing.  It should be short, three words max, and nothing too hard for the normal people to spell.  Keep it simple and original, not as hard as you think...if you're thinking it's hard.  If it's just your site to talk about your day, try putting your name in it and then and adjective about something you like to do, or what the site's about.  There are no limits but some bounds you shouldn't cross.  Keep it politically correct, keep it polite.  Follow these rules to make people find your site attractive.

Good luck, and remember it is cheap!

Building dreams takes somes nights to sleep

It's a fallacy that you will build your website in one night and it will be your favorite for life.  Odds are, if you build a website in only one night, you will find some way to improve it.  No matter how good you get at it, your great ideas aren't going to come on until you've had some time to look at it in whole.

A good way to circumvent that, however, is to draw it out first.  It sounds silly, but drawing your website out on notebook paper first makes a big difference and makes it a lot easier.  Think templates.  Where do you want what modules and what do they say.  Get notebook paper, assume the whole page is your webpage.  Will your banner be at the top on the left?  If so draw it there.  See how it looks and add your menu bar.  Where does it look best?  Visualize and put it there.  Put in content, even if it is written words.  Seeing what you plan to write down, next to the menu bar and widgets you plan to have will help in finishing the design layout of your site.  When you are happy with the way it looks on paper, make it your duty to copy it exactly in digital form.  Even with a WYSIWYG editor it should be completely possible.  With the forethought and planning you expended in making quality webpages your end product will be dreamy and creamy.  People will love it if you love it, that's general rule of thumb.  So keep thinking like that if you want your website to be a superstar or popular.  That is the goal to your domain being a success.  Good work! 

Just remember, even drawn out, it's good to give it a few days before you attempt to produce your art for the world.

Functions of a website

Websites are a creative and fun thing...but why do you want to make a website?  They are a fun experience and a good way to wind down in the day but what is your reason for making one?  You can relax by talking about your day, give advice on anything you know about, bring people together to talk about a subject, offer services, or sell goods.  From talking about hobbies to selling goods, your own domain can be fun.  Especially when you refer to it as your "domain".  Bringing all your friends together at the end of the day can be fun, and easy with a website.  You could even send out paper with your link on it at school or work to see if people will go there after the day is over.  With choices being endless it is fun to just have a forum at the end of the day to go to.  And if you get bored you can redesign your site for fun or do whatever you want to with it!  It can be fun and amazingly easy to bring people together with your site so have at it!

Going too long

When you first get into working on your site, it's easy to get stuck in doing that for ever.  While most people work for 8 hours a day, when you're building a site it's easy to stay in it much longer and not even realize it.  The more you work on it the more monotonous it's going to become.  You don't want to be up at four in the morning making extensive changes in you site, then wake up in the morning and notice that you changed a lot of stuff you didn't want to and got to change it back.  A good idea can make your site but a bad idea can make it unbearable, so make sure you take a break if you work it too long.  Go to sleep, take a nap, or a break, whatever suits your fancy.  The bottom line is making sure you keep your creativity up and working, and your ability to process information top notch.  Keep this in mind when you're developing a site.

Web design

A lot of people wonder what the most important thing is when you're building a site. Layout of things or colors or content or menu, they are all more or less so equally important.

It is all that. The left is generally where your menu is, even though it's popular to put it at top now a days. Depends on your target audience. Some people may prefer the top menu, while some people may prefer the left side. Experiment with both and get feedback from your visitors to see what they want more. Colors will always be important though because you usually dont want it dark and depressing. Bright colors are good for getting noticed, including popular calming colors like orange and yellow. Experiment withnyour layout and colors to see what works best for you.

Ideas

Ideas can come from anywhere. Walking down the street, staring in the sun, or browsing forums. Ideas can come in leaps and bounds just by reading about what other people want to ask about or by letting their opinion and yours mix. It's always helpful to add to the community but you don't have to voice your opinion if you don't want to. The forum could spark your brain to an idea or though that would help your site. Give it a try, forums are a great place to get familiar with a service and how to use it, so read!

Modules

You probably think it's hard to make a site. What if I told you you could make any site with modules. There exist infinite modules that can change your layout or add features to your webpage. Most site builders look the same at first, just basic layout. You can customize it with hand picked modules that breath life into it by altering it's shape and color, not to mention functions. If you know what you're doing you can edit the modules for your own taste or even do it yourself. Many programs make it easier like dreamweaver, which allow you to make a site by clicking and dragging and then uploading it entirely to your site. Easy or difficult, you can always make a site look like you want ant it. Can be fun for you.

Arvixe

I'm going to talk about the server I use. First off I will note that it is available in Microsoft ASP or Linux, which you know is a much needed choice. Linux servers are going to run better and be more reliable to you, not to mention their ease of troubleshooting and fixing. Basically if the same problem happens on a microsoft server and a Linux server, it should get fixed more easier and sooner on the Linux box. That in mind, the other choice still has it's points but I will always favor the former. Anyways their product is accessible at www.arvixe.com and they have a good forum. I recommend reading around their forum. Bit to decide if you want them but I think you will like them. You can get coupons off the internet too to save you money. They're cheap anyway.

Cart software

Cart software is the name of a program that gives your site the ability to "cart" or, have as op ing cart to sell items. Open cart is free to install and has modules you pay for later. The site is really awesome and can be found at www.opencart.com. If you want right in their forums go to forums.opencart.com for viewing thir wonderful community. Their community is very helpful and work together to help you with any problems you have. Enjoy viewing their forum and look if it's right for you. Since it's open source the community writes scripts for it so here's always something new.

Pictures

I know you all will be expecting screenshots or at least links or something. Ill probably get around to it tomorrow or tonight if I get the time. Who else wants some hot chocolate? Because it surely seems like this sis going to take months to make. *yawn*. I don't want to stay up all night fiddling with my site but I might have to. Anyways. Pictures. Soon, maybe.

First day setting up my website

Well, I'm starting a website now and it is a lot harder than I thought. this is nothing like what I remember in high school. I tok web development just like every other kid but today you have to be a scientist. I learned pretty much just basic HTML and there is so much else these days. You got XML, XHTML, PHP, mysql databases, and embedding Java is easier than ever. Or more commonly expected, dunno about easier.

My checklist to start off was small, buy the domain name, register the server space (I got a Linux programmed server running on Linus OS BTW), and set it up no problem. Turned out I needed to do a lot more and all through FTP. The new site will be a shop type store meaning I will sell stuff through it. I am going to sell hand painted customized shoes, so our customers know that each shoe will be unique and a one of a kind piece of art. So since it's a store I'm using a free online cart named Open Cart, google it up if you need a cart, the online forum is highly populated and help is everywhere. The main page still displays the demo the cart gives you, since I know way less about web development than I originally thought but it's only been one day so cut some slack. I am using the Arvixe company for my domain hosting, the company seems pretty good but I will have to try it myself and give feedback so all of you know if it's good.

Getting the site set up to begin with involves mainly uploaded scripts to set the cart up on my server properly so I'm not even getting experience with my web design and programming (or what programming languages to even use). I don't know what to learn to build websites in the beginning but it is a pretty big rush just owning one, so it's still fun. I hope the website sells many units of product.