Creating a website

[crazy pyro]

Right, basically I've been asked to set up a website for my local amateur radio club to put some information about where they're located etc on, I've actually got no idea about where to start in setting a website up but I'm willing to learn how to do it myself however due to the low traffic that is expected of it I'll be hosting it on a home connection on my dad's old PC so host provided software is out of the question. The old PC consists of an AMD Athlon 3000+, 1GB of RAM, a radeon 9600 and a 200 GB HDD, not the most power efficient but my gran can use pretty much as much electricity as she wants each month and won't mind the extra heat (that house is never below 20 degrees C, EVER).
I'd also like to run my own personal website on the same computer if at all possible.
I haven't got domain names for either website yet but the club will be purchasing one when they decide what they're renaming to.
So, any good walkthroughs for beginners?
I'll happily use linux for the server's OS.
Thanks in advance
Spen

 

[Munki]

Right, basically I've been asked to set up a website for my local amateur radio club to put some information about where they're located etc on, I've actually got no idea about where to start in setting a website up but I'm willing to learn how to do it myself however due to the low traffic that is expected of it I'll be hosting it on a home connection on my dad's old PC so host provided software is out of the question. The old PC consists of an AMD Athlon 3000+, 1GB of RAM, a radeon 9600 and a 200 GB HDD, not the most power efficient but my gran can use pretty much as much electricity as she wants each month and won't mind the extra heat (that house is never below 20 degrees C, EVER).
I'd also like to run my own personal website on the same computer if at all possible.
I haven't got domain names for either website yet but the club will be purchasing one when they decide what they're renaming to.
So, any good walkthroughs for beginners?
I'll happily use linux for the server's OS.
Thanks in advance
Spen

id just do some HTML. So simple a ten year old can do it.

As far as learning it, I highly recommend http://www.w3schools.com

and I think this is in the wrong section *Programming and Webmastering*

 

[digibucc]

as far as the server software, apache/php is a free combo that can do everything. there are more than enough tutorials out there just by googling the names.

you want to:

1)buy a domain name
2)find out if your isp gives you a static ip. it is doubtful.
if they do, skip 2a
2a)get a dynamic dns service. there are free ones but they are limited. a dyndns service will give you a static address you can point your domain name to. the dyndns software will also get installed on your host computer, so that it can tell the dyndns service where you are on the internet at all times. (not where you personally are browsing or anything, but where to find your host computer you want to set up)... without this, your domain name can not link to your computer.
3)install apache/php/mysql. they are all free, tons of tuts. google it.
4)design a basic website. go to osalt and look at good free tools. aptana is a good choice. then download,install, and use them to put together the site.
5)point your domain name to your static ip, or your dyndns address.

"hello world!"

as munki said read some tuts on html, but with a wysiwyg designer you hopefully won't even need to deal with tons of it. i would find a piece of software, like aptana, and read the documentation for that. it basically allows you to lay out your site like a word document, and not have to type in any code. wysiwyg=what you see is what you get.

w3schools is the very best.

 

[crazy pyro]

Cheers guys!
P.s. I KNEW there was a more appropriate forum on here but I just couldn't figure out where it was (was a bit tired when I posted this). I'll have a go at this stuff over the weekend/ easter holidays.

 

[Msap14]

Hope this helps

Im not professional web developer but i know html pretty well.

The layout of your website is basically just a collection of dividing boxes put together in an order, giving structure to the page. probably the most crucial properties when dealing with laying out you web design are padding, margins, and float.

padding: the spacing within the divider, by divider i mean the invisible box which would contain information, objects or images.

to create a divider go to your html style sheet and type the following.

}
#wrapper {
height: auto;
width: 750px;
}

this will give the style sheet the format for your box.

now go to the acutal code and under the <body> section type the following.

<div id="wrapper">
<p>text</p>
</div>

you should now see a text box in the design section containing the word text.

go back to the style sheet and under the previous entry add:
padding-left: 50px;

so you should then have

}
#wrapper {
height: auto;
width: 750px;
margin-left: 90px;
padding-left: 50px;
}

now you should see how the word text has moved over to the right 50 pixels, this is because a 50 pixel spacer has been added, this is the basic padding function. padding can be used all around the text box, not just the left.

margin has a similar function except the space is added to the outside of the text box.

float will help is creating a box within a box, so if you were to create another divider in the style sheet:

#divider {
height: 150px;
widht: 150px;
float: right;
}

you could place this divider under the wrapper section in the html code but above the wrapper contents to look like this:

<div id="wrapper">
<div id="divider">
<p>text2</p>
</div>
<p>text</p>
</div>

now you should have a second text box within the origonal text box.

using these few concepts you can pretty much layout your entire website. I hope this helps a bit; if it doens't work out or looks funny send me a message and ill help you out.

This should get you started, play around with these properties and you should get the hang of it in no time. I havn't looked at the link that was posted yet so im not sure what that has shown you yet but good luck with the website.

as far as the computing power needs, i have no idea.

 

[Polaris573]

You should try Kompozer to help you design your website.

 

[Kreij]

... or you could download Microsoft's Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition which is also free.

 

[Braveheart]

You should try Kompozer to help you design your website.

what he said.

... or you could download Microsoft's Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition which is also free.

not what he said, this just makes it way more confusing...doesn't make the process more streamlined at all.

 

[DirectorC]

I agree with a WYSIWYG editor. I like this idea of using Kompozer.

 

[Kreij]

this just makes it way more confusing...doesn't make the process more streamlined at all.

It depends on what he decides to do. If he puts up a basic 'Nix site server, then Kompozer would be a fine WYSIWYG editor.

If he decides to use IIS on a Windows server, and use ASP.NET and perhaps eventually something like Silverlight, then the MS IDE is the way to go. Features like Intellisense make life a lot easier.

Either way, he is going to have to harden the server against remote attacks, not such an easy task these days for any server, as all OS's have exploitable bugs. I doubt he would have to fend off a DDOS attack or something of tht nature, but there are still a lot of script kiddies out there trying to get a little recognition in their "communities" by hacking low end sites.

He is also going to have the Most Enjoyable Task™ of coding the pages to handle the various browser differences if he does anything fancy and wants it to be correctly displayed for everyone. I wrote a very simple web site for the company I work for that renders just fine in all browsers ... except Safari, because I did not realize it did not handle something as basic as image maps.

@Crazy : The stickied thread at the top of this section lists a lot of resources for a variety of programming languages for both application and web programming.

Also, make SURE that you back up the site in case someone does get in and trashes it.

... and remember, have fun !! Happy coding.

 

[933k]

Right, basically I've been asked to set up a website for my local amateur radio club to put some information about where they're located etc on, I've actually got no idea about where to start in setting a website up but I'm willing to learn how to do it myself however due to the low traffic that is expected of it I'll be hosting it on a home connection on my dad's old PC so host provided software is out of the question. The old PC consists of an AMD Athlon 3000+, 1GB of RAM, a radeon 9600 and a 200 GB HDD, not the most power efficient but my gran can use pretty much as much electricity as she wants each month and won't mind the extra heat (that house is never below 20 degrees C, EVER).
I'd also like to run my own personal website on the same computer if at all possible.
I haven't got domain names for either website yet but the club will be purchasing one when they decide what they're renaming to.
So, any good walkthroughs for beginners?
I'll happily use linux for the server's OS.
Thanks in advance
Spen

That is a lot of work if you pull it off, good for you

if you want to do it the easy way you can get free hosting at

www.000webhost.com

it has free templates so its easy to set up a website (no ads either)

for free domain names i use

www.co.nr

or

www.co.cc

 

[Braveheart]

It depends on what he decides to do. If he puts up a basic 'Nix site server, then Kompozer would be a fine WYSIWYG editor.

If he decides to use IIS on a Windows server, and use ASP.NET and perhaps eventually something like Silverlight, then the MS IDE is the way to go. Features like Intellisense make life a lot easier.

Either way, he is going to have to harden the server against remote attacks, not such an easy task these days for any server, as all OS's have exploitable bugs. I doubt he would have to fend off a DDOS attack or something of tht nature, but there are still a lot of script kiddies out there trying to get a little recognition in their "communities" by hacking low end sites.

He is also going to have the Most Enjoyable Task™ of coding the pages to handle the various browser differences if he does anything fancy and wants it to be correctly displayed for everyone. I wrote a very simple web site for the company I work for that renders just fine in all browsers ... except Safari, because I did not realize it did not handle something as basic as image maps.

@Crazy : The stickied thread at the top of this section lists a lot of resources for a variety of programming languages for both application and web programming.

Also, make SURE that you back up the site in case someone does get in and trashes it.

... and remember, have fun !! Happy coding.

very true, and my suggestion is: dont use microsoft for web development just open source such as: Notepad ++, Kompozer, Zymic and HTML4/5...its soo simple and you don't need to worry about complex windows servers and display problems that comes with silverlight and anything Microsoft.

 

[grunt_408]

very true, and my suggestion is: dont use microsoft for web development just open source such as: Notepad ++, Kompozer, Zymic and HTML4/5...its soo simple and you don't need to worry about complex windows servers and display problems that comes with silverlight and anything Microsoft.

Serif WebPlus x4 is brilliant and dead easy to use. I can highly recomend it for you to use.