Web Site Creation

[wind rose ll]

I wish to querry all of those that have created web sites for their boats and their stories /photos.
l am somewhat computor literate but want something easily managed/posted to from different locations.
Open to all suggestions
Dave

[Mexico Mike]

Hi Dave,
We use Microsoft FrontPage for our web site, and can update it from anywhere as long as we drag the laptop ashore. The program does cost a bit, and there is additional cost to get it hosted somewhere, but it's a breeze to use, and google ads may pay your bills as you get more hits on it.
I'm pretty sure there are free options available out there for blog type pages, like www.blogger.com or www.homestead.com
and they let you post photos, but there will be popups no doubt.
Best,
Mike

[LaLeLu]

We use blogger and have no complaints. It is simple and free. Check us out www.chrisandsusanconrad.blogspot.com

[sv_makai]

We have a fully hosted website. www.sv-makai.com. The advantage is picking your own domian and getting your emails yoursite@sv-makai.com or whatever you select.

Our webservice allows us 1000 emails and auto responders, NO advertising unless we add it to our own site, the abilty to use programs like Frontpage to create and maintain the site. Oh did I say we own the domain. None of the www.webblogger.com/friends/sailing/yoursite. That is always a mouthful and you still need seperate emails.

We selected a size, 10gig, that allowed us to upload all of the top quality photos and to build a managable structure. We thumbnail for quick loading and as the viewer reads the text the photos thumbnails are imbedded and they can select the thumbnail and get a super quality full size photo without having to wait for the page to download all f the fullsize photos or just having to be constrained by low res pics.

Having the master website on my hard drive allowed us to update the logs on the computer as the days passed. Whenever we got an internet connection we just had to upload the site and we were done. Saved time and money. We saw many cruisers that have a site that uses the online webserver or blogger programs would have to sit at the internet cafe and type it all in. The results were short and not very robust logs.

It isn't hard and is fun. I was a Corp Finance guy in a former life and learned to become Makai's webmaster.

If you have any paticular questions I will be happy to answer them.

www.sv-makai.com, check it out and let me know what you think.

[Sunspot Baby]

We have our own domain (cost for name and hosting) and maintain it with Microsoft Front Page. Easy to use. We find the position reporting capability of Skymate makes it easy to track us.

www.stateham.com/sunspotbaby

George

[wind rose ll]

Thanks to all ,l have to purchase a "FRONT PAGE" program as it seems to have the most benefits...love the photo quality.
Checked out Sunspot Baby's site and downloaded their Google Earth Travel Log....NEET!!! Check it out!
Mike on ARABELLA has a site that also needs a bookmark just as reference .
Thanks again folks.
Dave

[hellosailor]

Wind Rose, consider a contrarian point of view. If you want FAST, RELIABLE, ROBUST access, don't buy any of that stuff.

Get a book on HTML3.2, which was the standard way of writing web pages in 1997. You can learn it all in 48 hours, or a casual week. And the only tool you need to write the web pages is any text editor, i.e. NOTEPAD, or any word processor that can save in a PLAIN TEXT format.

The web pages created in HTML3.2 can look just as good as anything newer, you just don't have all the unstable, bulky, complicated dynamic processes that were added after that level. And you don't need 'em.

Any page you build, with any application, can be uploaded to your web site with MS Internet Explorer. Most folks don't know that web browsers, including MSIE, automatically will change to offer FTP menus (File Transfer Protocol) and FTP is the standard way of uploading files to your web server. Creation, maintenance, etc. of the web site only require an FTP tool.

Is that really sort of basic? Absolutely! All free, all dead simple, all very easy to troubleshoot and maintain. The web pages created by FrontPage or any of the fancier tools will look no better--and they'll be harder to maintain, more likely to have problems, and they'll often take 5x longer to transfer over the slow expensive connections you may have when you're not at home.

Greetings

I use a web program so old and simple you can't buy it anymore except maybe on ebay but you can download it free.

I find it does just fine and I learned it's basic operation in an afternoon on a freinds boat. It's ADOBE page mill. This is a link to a reviewer that tested the program from a novices point of view and does better at explaining it than I would... http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/communicatio...ll-3-0/435881/

My site is linked under my name and I must be the lowest tech human ever to create a web page.

I have dream weaver.... but it scares **** out of me!

[Sunspot Baby]

I have created web pages using HTML language. When I started, that's about all there was. A minor typo is a big deal with HTML. Yep, it's free, but the ability to see what you are creating as you do it makes life SO MUCH simpler, I now use Front Page.

George

[sv_makai]

I too did my first websites in html with free editors and even used HotDog. I found the coding easy, but site management and navigation difficult and a lot of work. Though one page sites work well enough.

For ease of navigation and maintaince I switched to Frontpage. We have some 15 seperate pages with a tree navigational structure. Frontpage provides and excellent map that is easy to manage. It also updates the links for site navigation. Adding new pages and links is a breeze.

Frontpage also uses an FTP to upload the site and is quick. You have the option of only uploading what has changed rather that the whole site every time. SO it can be faster to upload.

As I stated above, I have found it to be fast and easy, and overall a more polished product results. It is good and interesting to learn HTML, it helps when you start to get very fancy with the site, but I think Frontpage and the similar programs give a better product faster and easier.

JMO

[hellosailor]

Makia-
"You have the option of only uploading what has changed rather that the whole site every time." You don't need ANY software to do that.<G>

Keep your web site files in one directory. VIEW them by date. UPLOAD only the ones that you have changed (worked on) since the last date. Voila, same fast upload of changes only. And, your web pages may be 90% smaller in size. Which also makes them load and display 10x faster when someone using plain old dial-up goes to look at your site.

Frontpage is popular, like most products of the 800# Gorilla From Redmond. But, it produces big bloated sloppy moden code. Kinda like never looking at your diesel engine and relying on SeaTow when you run out of fuel.<G>

[hellosailor]

TCP Bob-
The legacy version of PageMill that Adobe (incredibly and silently) offers for free download is from 2000. Free is good...but it was a bit quirky even back then. Nice to learn that you can get it for free now.

[sv_makai]

On purchasing Frontpage. If you own or have microsoft office than it is already included.

Agreed, that is one approach, but I did manage my own and a corporate internal Capital planning site for years and found it easier (yes a bit lazy) to deal with Frontpage's interface rather than continually looking and sorting dates.

I found that having everything in one directory is messy and diffcult to manage. When I created our current site I setup subdirectories to help manage photos, past and present, as well as log pages, articles, etc. Without the frontend manager I would have to deal with multiple directories for upload.

Makai Home port stats

880 totals files
818 pictures including thumbnails
743 are linked pages, thumbnails, or other websites
0 broken links reported
8 links that are considered slow

This would be a mess if in one directory!!

This Frontpage report has helped improve by identifying issues that I can correct.

For small simple one page sites everything in a directory can work. But if you set the site up with future expansion in mind then it is easier to make the cahnges and move on without the readers even noticing it.

When coding a site any change in one has to reflected in all the related pages or else broken links appear. Also would need to make sure that if I added new pages or moved pages around every page that had a nav button would have to updated as well.

Each system works, each has its advantages. I like the speed of which a quality site can be creat ed in Frontpage and the ease at changing the site around structurally without recoding. We have always asked for comments on the site to try to improve and have changed it around several times to improve readabilty or speed (ie thumbnailing photos). For myslef the more organized he site the less errors and lost files i seem to have.

This is kind of like the Pepsi Coke debate going on in another thread. I used to drink Coke and enjoyed it, but I switched to Pepsi and I like it better. This is sort of the same thing. Both get you to a product, the website, it is just the path that is taken.

I stated earlier, it is a good education to try both and the HTML I learned in the old days helps me now even when I use frontpage.

[Tropic Cat]

I use Yahoo for hosting and domain. They have tools available to do your own pages at no cost. It comes with the price of the web site... 8 bucks a month!!

Rick in Florida

hellosailor...

I think the free download is not from adobe but apparently they aren't 'policing' the situation either. The version I use may have been up-dated. I hear the original did have some cranky bits come to think of it. But it is easy to manage and fairly capable. I have over 130 html pages on my site and 7 or 8 pdf downloads and have never had a problem. Keeping in mind...I am not puter wise or normally tolerant. Right now I'm looking at a 17" screen plugged into my laptop cause... well... my mouse seems to have taken a flying leap at the lap top screen and the screen came off second best... ahemm..

All up I use Corel draw, photoshop 7, and ms word all the time with Page mill for web and smart FTP to upload.

One chronic problem I do have on my web site is downloading the pdf's of the paper. For some reason just left clicking on the paper often fails the first time. Right clicking and "save target as" works every time though. If any one knows the answer to that one I would be grateful.

Cheers