ones own webpages
 

can someone point me to a dummies guide (on the web?) to implementing a small personal website? I have dabbled in HTML and succeeded in creating a few linked pages with pictures and text, all resident on my desktop PC.

What I don't have a clue about is how to go about getting the pages hosted somewhere else, so that I can edit them, nobody can bu99er about with them, the public can find them and the are all under my own domain name.

I probably want to have them at Fasthosts, who supply my domain name. Should I speak to them first?

I have a copy of FTP somewhere, I guess it might be needed. What else might I need?

Granny sucking eggs level will be welcome!

Rans6.....

Rans6Andrew,

I'd suggest first thing is to look at who you can get the domain from as they may well be able to provide space.

When I put up Mrs batninth's web site, we get space from our ISP, Virgin media, so the site is on the Virgin media space, and I just redirected the domain name to the site.

In your case, it looks like you need the space so I'd say look around and see if you can get the domain plus the space you need hosted somewhere for a reasonable price

Either way, when you sign on for the domain and the hosting, they will give the instructions of what to do, ids, passwords etc. Generally you are right in that you need to copy all the files to the site, you can do it with Internet Explorer but I use FileZilla which is an FTP client (I'm a tight so-and-so and FileZilla is free!) to upload everything.

So - sign up for space & the domain you need, they will tell you what to do, and get an FTP client loaded.

Frankly if I can do it then anyone can. It's easy to do & you'll have no problems

Send me a PM mate, I run my own web servers for my own websites so can give you a bit of space to play around with.

A good offer there!

If you have a conventional ADSL contract, it may include webspace (I've got two, and they both do). Tell us who provides your ADSL, and I'm sure someone on here will soon tell you if you have webspace and how to access it.

Otherwise, you need somewhere with FTP access to upload your pages - FileZilla is indeed the one to use. Aerouk's space will help for the initial setup. If you get serious about the website, you will eventually want your own domain and space.

Don't be suckered into paying big money for a domain and hosting. You can register a .uk domain for around £6 for two years, with web and mail forwarding. I've got 23 domains registered in that way (not all for me, but for organisations I look after). Most of those are hosted on the same block of webspace with the same provider.

Batninth,

I get my domain (for email) from Fasthosts, they can sell me 2Gb of webspace for 3.50 a month. Sounds cheap enough to me, I can put it in my business expenses. O2broadband is our ISP but I don't think that they provide us with any webspace , I can't see it on their website for a standard isp package.

Aerouk,

thanks for the kind offer. I would prefer not to impose on you as I might want to use it in connection with my work.


Rans6....

Might I suggest a look here
https://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/...=1269125901105

They have always provided me with much help and if you have any sort of standard requirement they may well have the template already available.

If you are going to go for "outside" hosting, then the one I'd go for every time is 34sp.com. I have no connection with them - I'm not even a customer of theirs because I was all set up long before I heard of them.

A friend whose opinion I value told me about them, and showed me the sort of service he was getting. Everyone I've pointed at them since has been very happy.

Creating entire websites from scratch with nothing but a text editor is very retro. And for a webmaster newbie like you, it's a process to be positively avoided because the results will look and feel very much retro too .... :cool:

Either get your hands on a good WYSIWYG editor (e.g. Adobe Dreamweaver), or if you insist on hacking away by hand, do yourself a favor and start with some well designed templates that suit your tastes.

Other than that, Google is your friend, there's more than enough "granny suck eggs" material .... otherwise try your local bookshop/Amazon. Not that I don't want to be helpful, but there is so much to teach you and so little space in which to do so here on PPRuNe. :ok:

I echo that, I have used them for 9 years now without problem. V helpful in sorting minor glitches. Prices v reasonable too.
One thought is to keep ISP and Web host separate. It makes it easier to change ISP without the hassle of moving Web hosting and mail at the same time. We are about to move house and since I split ISP and Web hosting some years ago this is going to be a lot easier.

Am I correct in saying that all web sites must contain an index.htm (or html) file which is run anytime anyone visits the site? index.htm either contains the front page of the site or causes the front page's htm to run.

I write my web site directly in htm, having purchased Sam's Learn HTML in xxx Days book years ago. It's pretty simple if you don't want / need to do anything fancy.

I also recommend FileZilla for FTP.

My ISPs have always included a reasonable amount of web space in their basic price.

seacue

Total web novice here but I believe what you are saying to be correct - well that's the way it works with my ISP (plus.com) who hosts my webspace. When someone enters the name of your webspace in their browser, it looks for index.htm, opens and displays the contents of the file. This can then have links to other files stored in your webspace and do whatever else you require.
If the organisation which provides your hosting and stores your web files is asked to host more than one webspace name then you need a folder in your webspace for each web title, each containing a different index.htm file. Your host is then instructed to direct calls to each webs title to the appropriate folder so that, despite being hosted by the same server, each webspace name appears independent as the appropriate index.htm fie is opened in each case.
I am a bear of very little brain when it comes to webspace. Having got my own website up and running a year or three ago - with assistance from the kind contributors to this board - it has taken me since then to discover how to get my website to download a file! I think that it is so easy to the experts that they don't realise that it stumps lesser mortals like me. It was only a line of code and now I can upload the .pdf of a monthly magazine I edit to my webspace, my (human) printer can log on to it with a "/folder name" at the end of the web title to access a separate folder. This also contains an index.htm file which immediately opens. This contains the magic code line which enables him to download the 30Mb file so that he can prepare his offset litho masters for printing purposes. In the old days, the file had to be split into three or four and e-mailed. I can't tell you how pleasantly suprised when I first got this system to work!

I have deliberately not given my own website name here as it would serve no purpose and Saab could rightfully accuse me of trying to advertise!

P.P.

You don't have to have an index.html, but if you don't then anyone entering just www + your webspace name will get a "Can't find it" error.

On the other hand, if you have a domain registered and forwarded, you won't necessarily want an index.html. I have a spoof domain (essexman.org.uk) which forwards to something entirely different.

Keef,

Actually, strictly speaking you can have whatever you want as long as your web server is correctly configured to serve it as a default page when none is requested for a directory..... :cool:

And in relation to P.P's post...
A process which could be summarised thus when you are asking your hosting provider to set it up :

"HTTP/1.1 Name-based virtual hosts."

Something which any hosting provider worth their salt should be able to provide in this day and age (and for which I would not expect to pay any extra).

I had my own domain name for years, and the website went through various stages:

• First, "flat" pages created using Microsoft FrontPage and uploaded by FTP.
• Then I tried various "content management systems", settling on WordPress. This required a web server with MySQL and PHP capability.
• Finally, I moved it to the wordpress.com hosted web service, which is free for basic sites. Because I took part in a beta program, they hosted my own domain name for free, otherwise it would have been $10 a year.

Something like wordpress.com is the "low maintenance" option, since they take care of the "back end", and creating web pages is as easy as filling in a form. The disadvantage is limited flexibility. You can buy the option to customise the look of the site (via "style sheets"), otherwise you are limited to the templates they provide (which are OK).