How to create a website recommendations?

[gregbradley]

I am interested in creating my own website. Both for astro photos and also for business.

Any suggestions about software that makes building a great website easy or sites that help you create a good website?

Greg.

[Atmos]

I’ve found RapidWeaver easy to use.

[Merlin66]

I've successfully used Dreamweaver - simple and straightforward.
Check out
http://www.astronomicalspectroscopy.com/

http://www.adobe-students.com/au/products/dreamweaver.html

[ZeroID]

weebly.com
I run two free sites on there but the paid option (reasonable rates) allows video and your own domain name and other extras.
Very easy to build online, good templates

Look at eplusbike.weebly.com

And that is the free version....

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

Greg.

[Redshift13]

In addition to Weebly, the other two "big players" in the online website builder space are:
Wix (www.wix.com)
Squarespace (www.squarespace.com)

I believe they all offer both free (with limited functionality) and paid price points.

[AstroJunk]

I use wordpress as it is so good (and easy) for media. http://shadowchaser.com.au/

Joomla is more involved, but very good for e-commerce.

If you get webspace from go daddy or the like, you will get a whole raft of tools free (including the above) that you can explore.

[dpastern]

I hope you're updating your Wordpress the instant new updates are available. As someone who's responsibility has been managing the web servers for a small/medium ISP, I personally wouldn't touch either Wordpress or Joomla. But, each to their own.

[dpastern]

I'd probably go with WIX, they seem to be the market leaders. That said - any site you design with them is non portable, should you wish to migrate it to either another design/hosting company, or your own infrastructure.

Dreamweaver is pretty good, but expensive and complex. Certainly not for a noob or someone who isn't computer tech savvy imho.

The problem with these automated tools is that you do not get to understand the underlying technology(ies), and when things go wrong, it makes it very hard for you to troubleshoot the issue. But hey, I'm an old fart, and code everything by hand, using notepad/vim. :P

[sil]

Yep, I'm the same. Websites are dead easy to make. I still prefer the days before the web infested the world. Long live ftp, gopher and archie!

[dpastern]

I had to look both of those up! I had heard of both of them, but never investigated what they were. They were both from before my time (I didn't get a computer until 1997). Gopher sounds rather interesting!

edit: I still use lynx from time to time and just realise that it uses the gopher space. Well, well, well.

I was very late into computers, at age 28, even though I'd been using computers (dumb terminals/3.11) since '94. Computers didn't grab me until my best mate sat me down and harshly told me that they were the future and I'd better get my act together and learn about them and use them.

I prefer static sites (non php, scripting language) - yes they are less powerful, but pretty much impervious to mischievous behaviour from naughty people ;-)

[RickS]

I have been playing with Hugo, a static site generator: http://gohugo.io/about/

I like the idea of a static site from a portability, speed and security POV. If only I had more time...

Cheers,
Rick.

[dpastern]

that looks rather interesting, thanks Rick!

[lazjen]

Haha, I've got this on my backlog too, for exactly the same reasons. :)

[dpastern]

stupid question - how do I become a PI Cult Member lol!

[RickS]

You can be anything you want so long as it doesn't offend the moderators:

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/profile.php?do=editprofile

[dpastern]

ahh! Thank you!

[OzEclipse]

I use Dreamhost.com as my hosting provider. USD110 per annum includes a nominal 450GB of hosting space that you can partition however you like. If you need more space for a legitimate project, (as far as I can tell that covers basically anything except porn, or illegal (copyright breach) music or video streaming) they say they'll give it to you at no extra charge.

The $110 pa includes one domain, extra domains can be registered and added at $10 pa per top level domain eg .net and .com domains. Some domain types are more expensive to register.

You have full control via a control panel to manage domains, users access and passwords. They don't seem to have limits on bandwidth, or at least none that have affected me. I get between 150000 and 250000 IP address visits to the site per year.


I've been with them for 7 years. In that time they had one security breach. They detected it and within hrs had reset every users password and were very forthcoming with a report on what happened and what action they took. I haven't needed much support but whenever I've asked, they answer. Their prices have not increased since I started my package other than the effect of the devaluation of the Aussie dollar which is not their fault.

They have one click formatting for Wordpress. Maybe the same for Joomla I'd have to check. Or you can format the space to do HTML coding for yourself.

The difference is that these packages provide a piece of software that allows you to upload content text and images straight to the website. Other packages, dreamweaver, Kompozer, and others mentioned mean you can edit a copy stored on your hard drive then upload to the site. I've always used an offline editor then upload but it's just a personal preference. When I coded my site I didn't forsee the explosion in smartphone and tablet access and so my site is only formatted for computer/laptop sized screens. This lowers your search engine presence. Joomla and wordpress, are basically preformatted. There are limited templates but I believe that they interrogate the device and reformat content for the device. If starting now, I would either go for software that is device aware or else have to code it myself. I am not an expert in this area and so can't tell you what the best packages are. Do some research of your own and see what's around now.

Basically I've been very happy with the service I've had from dreamhost as a domain host for the past 7 years, no complaints.

Before I switched to them, I was paying more per annum to a Canberra based provider before that and they would only let me have 100MB. I ran out of that space and had to bridge to other server spaces for a couple of years. I spoke to them about it and for an extra $300 per annum, they offered me an extra 25MB of space. Wow! When I decided to leave, they refused to give me access to my control panel and so I couldn't move my old domain joecali.net. Rather than take expensive legal action, I decided to give up the domain and found joe-cali.com was available and registered that instead. With dreamhost, I have access to the panel and can move it if I ever want to change providers.

Cheers

Joe

[dpastern]

Joe - this is a real issue with many of these hosting companies - they register the domain in their name, not yours, and it's near impossible to get the domain back from them, especially if it's a tLD not governed by AUDA.

My advice to people it to *always* register your own domain, never let a hosting company do it for you.

I have seen too many people lose their domains this way and it's shocking.

[sil]

Greg, what are your requirements "for astrophotos and also business use" is nowhere near enough detail to make a good decision.

Owning your own domain name is essential and can be costly. So consider your end users at all times"gregsbloodyawesomesuperwebsite.com" doesn't instill a lot of confidence is you are trying to attract business customers."greg.com" likewise doesnt say much to attract anyone. But if you have a business selling Gizmos then gregsgizmos.com would be a better choice at least but what if the market for Gizmos plumets and youstart selling Garden Gnomes? Your website domain should be suitable for your business branding, of course you can buy as many domains as you want of course.

What features do you need in a website? server-side and client-side? Do you know anything about building/maintaining websites at all? If you want to go with an online service look to the ones that have been around a long time as a way to sort them first, dont sort by prices first.

You might want/need a content management system, some hosting companies offer this in their package. If you want to learn and experiment, HTML is the base language for websites and if you have a home internet account you probably already have an empty website you can use at www.myinternetprovider.com.au/~myinternetaccountname/

you can make a simple photogallery using HTML and JavaScript (the coding language that runs in a web browser). Look into Lightbox.

You really need to well define exactly what you require as well as the funky what you want stuff. Part of why web design is so expensive is a client comes along and says i want a website. It gets built and the client now decides they want a website with a built in search engine, be able to have people buy items, allow people to upload photos or whatever seemingly "simple" request that means the entire site has to be scrapped and rebuilt from scratch numerous times. its a time consuming process and the client is the bottleneck. If they don't know exactly what they want up front and dont change their mind and want to make constant changes during the process it massively increases the time and costs involved.

I've been building custom websites for a living since mid 90s and over ten years for government. The worst part is always the clients. without fail.

[dpastern]

Sil's hit the nail on the head.

I've seen a lot of customers get a joomla or wordpress site designed, usually from an overseas incompetent developer. Something goes wrong, or the site becomes outdated cos of new updates to wordpress/joomla and the owner of the site does nothing, and the site gets hacked. Then they have a go at the dev...either learn how to update and maintain the site yourself, or enter into a maintenance agreement with your dev, so that they update the site as soon as new updates become available.

I personally dislike CMS sites, they are, without any variance, clunky to say the least. I've already mentioned my personal dislike of wordpress and joomla. There's a reason why they're free software ;-)

Domain name is important, and getting a good domain is even more important. I've seen people pick silly domain names names and just shake my head...the old k.i.s.s principle really does apply...

Dave

[gregbradley]

Fantastic replies and great advice.
My domain name reflects my business and is separate from the hosting.
I ended up using Wix and it.was very easy and very impressive. Wow it's really made easy for you now.
Thanks for all the helpful replies. I knew you techie guys would know.
Greg

[dpastern]

Well that's good news Greg. Just be aware that your site will not be portable to another hosting provider down the track, should you wish to move.

WIX makes very nice website building tools, although I don't know how secure the code is underneath it all.

If you are going to get a payment system in place on the site, *always* get a SSL certificate. Make sure you get a SHA256, at least 2048 bits, preferably 4096. Wildcard SSLs etc are sometimes better value, depending on how you want to employ encrypted data within your site. If you have something like store.domainname.com, I would just recommend getting a single non wildcard SSL for that.

I don't know what server types WIX is running, I'm personally not a fan of Windows based web servers...IIS just plain sucks. You shouldn't have to go that deep through, WIX's front end tools should do the work for you.

[RickS]

I reckon the .space TLD is a pretty cool place for astronomy related sites. I registered rickstevenson.space back when they first made it available. Currently it points at Flickr but one day I'll build a proper web site :D

[dpastern]

yeah, does sound good. I just can't justify the cos and website creation. Just easier to have astrobin/flickr for me.