Time to Make a Website...

[fatwoul]

I've had the link in my sig for months, and had the domain name for as long, but I've never actually got around to building my astro website.

The last time I made a site was about 6 years ago, and I am ashamed to say I have no idea what to do anymore. That one was constructed in Dreamweaver, but I doubt that's what the cool kids use anymore - the cool kids weren't even using it back then! It'd probably end up looking a bit old and clunky if I used that now.

So what are my best options these days?

Cheers

[Stephen]

Notepad

Failing that, you can get Visual Studio Web Express for free - great IDE (waits for the Eclipse mob to join in )

[ScubaMike]

Register your web address first.

.org.uk ones (I have 2 of these) are costing me £1.99 a year each.

The one in your sig has already been registered, so hopefully you have already got this one.

Do you really care if it doesn't look "cool"?

So long as you can showcase your images, that'll be "cool" enough for most visitors.

[Nillchill]

I have used this site, you can register your domain and it only costs 12.99 to host your site and they will host your site forever. 100Mb bandwidth per-month, 100MB site size, I have found the speed more than ample

they have loads of free tools available to allow you to build your site and services

Cheap Web Hosting Services. Free PHP Website Hosting By UK Company

give them a look in

[mark7331]

Dreamweaver is fine, so are many more free editors such as Eclipse, Bluefish and even notepad.

If I were you I'd get some ideas about the layout from existing astro websites and then take a peek at some free template sites such as the OpenSource WebDesign site: Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates.

Your domain is registered at 123-reg and they have many hosting options but beware that the cheapest options don't allow scripts like PHP and some have low bandwidth limits which isn't great for a picture website.

Hope that helps.

Mark

Failing that, you can get Visual Studio Web Express for free - great IDE (waits for the Eclipse mob to join in )

Noooo! :)

[Ben Ritchie]

I like Wordpress. I have the basic 1&1 package (£2.49/month) then run Wordpress 3.2 against a MySQL database provided as part of the package (don't worry, as far as I can tell there's no need to actually know what MySQL is or how to use it).

Fairly blog-like, but very customizable and extremely easy to setup and administer.

[Cjg]

Wordpress

Easy - most hosts have 1 click installs of the database

lots of free and interesting themse

masses of support

I moved one of ur sites away from 1&1 with their bespoke webuilder package - got fed up with the constant attempts to upsell

Good luck

[OzDave]

I built the EQMac site recently using Drupal (a content management system) provided by my hosting company. I also tried Joomla!, which is similar, but I eventually settled on Drupal.

These things basically remove the need to handcraft each page and just let you create and manage the site by posting articles to it and deciding where they should go etc.

David

[Euan]

I like Wordpress

Same here. Really easy to use and let's you concentrate on content. Mine is hosted by Workpress as well, but you can quite easily register domain names on it and it's fairly cheap.

[Paxo]

Another one for Wordpress. Just the question of finding a theme you like.

Steve

[Komet]

I use Antenna which I like .... results in my sig

[Pitbull]

I use these guys for hosting my websites, never had any problems with them or experienced downtime. I stream weather data to my site and have not had any bandwidth issues. http://www.qiq.co.uk/portal/aff.php?aff=085

I also use Alleycode as a website editor, this gives a preview which actually looks like the finished website and includes a few templates. top 10 search engine ranking, top 10 google ranking - Submit Plus!

Ignore the sales on the page, bottom left is a link to download the editor and it's free.

My preferences may not be everyones cup of tea.

[fatwoul]

Thanks everyone, lots for me to think about.

I think, to start with, I'm going to follow Mark's advice and cruise around some other astro sites to help me decide what I want to include in my own, and what layout might work for me.

Once I've got a clearer idea that might help me settle on a package with which to create it.

Cheers all

[markarian]

wordpress.com is free. Only costs if you host the software from wordpress.org and have to set it up yourself. Less functionality but enough for a basic astro blog.

Mark

[garethmob]

my astro site uses wordpress (but i do host it my self on a blueonyx based server) i love wordpress

for a little more advanced id got for joomla or even drupla (but never really got on with drupla)

theres plenty of tutorials

Joomla Tutorials

WordPress Lessons WordPress Codex

wordpress is based mainly for blogging but i find its perfect, u just pick your theme and it can change perfectly to what you want

joomla is more customiseable

for companys i recamend for hosting / registration i use lcn.com and have never had a problem, but the main one i would recamend is names.co.uk it also hosts any of the CMS (joomla/drupla) and wordpress at a very cheap price given the choice i would use them if i didnt host it my self