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General discussion

Newbie on web hosting, Please Help

Jul 17, 2007 10:08PM PDT

I have been maintaining a website for the last several months, but I have now been asked to create a new site. What things do I need to be aware of, make sure to do/not do, etc.?

Thanks in advance to anyone else who knows what's going on, and can respond.

Discussion is locked

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Mhh
Jul 18, 2007 7:09AM PDT

Tell us a little more about the website you have to design, who is the audience, what will the website focus on, what will you use to create it, and then also, narrow down your question a little bit. There are hundreds of things one can be aware of, but it changes from website to website... so if you provide a little more detail, we can narrow it down for you, too!

~Sovereign

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re: Mhh
Jul 19, 2007 9:49PM PDT

Okay, I'm new at this, but I'll try.
-The website is for a new engineering firm wanting to get small government contracts (and probably work up).
-The audience is probably mainly going to be executives and others with a high-speed connection.
-The purpose of the website will probably be used as a marketing tool to the government and investors.
-I have a copy of Dreamweaver MX 6.0 Education Version for Windows, and I've tried the CS3 trial for Mac. It will probably take me a little while, though, to get comfortable enough in it, to where I can just play around with it to see what I can do. I am _much_ more comfortable working in something like iWeb (for Mac), but which codes its webpages absolutely terribly! Ughhhh ! ! ! Yuckk ! ! ! ! ! (And it makes textboxes into pictures ! ! !) Well, anyway, enough on that.

Hope this helps with my question(s). I don't know what questions to ask, so if you know of something, _please_ go ahead and ask.

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Honestly
Jul 20, 2007 8:32AM PDT

Most of the things that you should be aware of you will figure out through trial and error. Problems are just waiting to happen in every corner, and as much I would hope for you to avoid them, until you actually run into them, I'd suggest not driving yourself crazy with all the things you need to be careful with.

The first steps would be to setup your "playground" ...

1) Register the domain they'd like to use (if they haven't already).

2) Sign-up with a reliable host, especially if you are doing something for the government, I'd recommend a host with 24/7 support, a host who makes frequent backups, 99.9% uptime, and feature enabled so that whatever comes to your mind you can build.

3) Put up a index.html page on the new server (coming soon), and link the domain to the new host.

4) Now create a directory on the host, just for you, and start with the website in whatever program you decide on. Most of your time will be spent here.

The only thing I can suggest is to test your site frequently. Start with the main layout, structure, design, style sheets, colors... design just the first page until you are compeltely happy... get some feeback from the people who hired you. Like I said, upload frequently and check your website with at least IE7 and Firefox. You can also run your website through (I'd recommend it) here http://validator.w3.org/ and then fix any recommendations.

Also, come back here if you run into any problems and we'd be more than happy to assist you along the way with any questions you may have!

Also, for the website, start of by keeping things SIMPLE... the best websites have a simple structure, easy navigation.... you can always expand on things later, but keeping it simple = less problems.

Good Luck!

~Sovereign