Recommendations for Web tools

[Microship]

I still do most of my site with vanilla retro HTML, using Kompozer (not really recommended) to kinda-WYSIWYG edit and FTP to the server. I would not recommend this now, given the free tools available.

Wordpress lives on your web host - check to see if they have CPANEL, and there may already be an installer present. There is a tool called Fantastico for installing scripts on your server, though doing it directly is not difficult (and, some say, less prone to error). It requires an SQL database, which is where it keeps all the posts, articles, comments, photos, and so on. None of this requires you to know much about SQL; you just follow the procedure, write down the passwords, and get on with content generation.

Re your last question... yes, exactly. The editor is in the back-end of the Wordpress program, which has the twin advantages that you are not tied to a single machine and that you can share authorship and site maintenance with others.

Steve

[Ti' Punch]

Alright guys, thanks so much for the help. I'll post a link once I get the site up.

And thank you to the mods for letting me post this admittedly non-sailing related topic on the forum. I knew my fellow sailors would come through for me.

Chris

[Patient]

Originally Posted by wronco

I agree wholeheartedly with Jonathan. I am a web developer by trade, and do lots and lots and lots of custom development using rails, jquery, and friends. But I would not use anything but wordpress for my personal site. It's easy and cheap (often free) to get beautiful themes, photo upload is a piece of cake, it has excellent SEO built in.

*Raises hand*

Former web developer for major Ad Firm chiming in as well.

Just as wronco stated, I would use wordpress or find a similarly styled HTML template available at one of the many template sites around the web, such as Themeforest.net.

There are numerous webshosts with wordpress as an optional installation. Wordpress being module based, it is very easy to customize it with little knowledge of actually building a website. There are some sailor friendly plugins as well, such as a KML tacker for googlemaps to display routes, email to blog parsing which works wonders if you cannot access the web, etc etc.

[barnakiel]

I build most sites from free templates (mostly CSS based unless the Client is after something specific that cannot be done in CSS) and then upload them on servers that have graphic interfaces. This works great for most web sites - private and corporate sites, blogs and galleries, etc.

However, I am finding more and more that a proper blog site is way easier and often better form of making a web site, except when a shop or a database access is necessary.

If a database is necessary I will use MySQL, PHP and whatever server the host provides (preferably Apache).

All tools I use are free (Microsoft Windows is not though, but one can use Linux) and about 90 % of what I do I do online.

b.

[Microship]

Yes... and the other stuff is free as well. Even forums, photo albums, wikis, and shopping cart systems... I use Zen Cart and it has been pretty painless for a small online store. A little fiddly, that last one, but not too bad.

One must veer away from the free tools if there's a need for something truly design-heavy, with custom Flash or other eye candy... or serious Web 2.0 stuff that requires back-end code.

By the way, you can play with ALL of this stuff locally, before adding the dimension of a distant server, by running MAMP (Macintosh), LAMP (Linux), or WAMP (Windows). These provide Apache, MySQL, and PHP in one tidy environment (a folder) on your machine, with a way to fully test your system before going live and exposing it to all the Horrors of the Net.

[Ti' Punch]

Ok, so I downloaded MAMP and Wordpress and built my site locally on my Mac. Thank you very much everyone for the advice. I'm waiting now to hear back from our current host on whether or not they support Apache and PHP. I kind of put the cart before the horse on that one, but if they don't I think we will be in the market for a new hosting service.

Thanks again guys,

Chris

[Microship]

Happy to help! If you need a friendly host with all the right tools and startlingly responsive tech support, I can recommend mine... PM me (no connection other than happy customer).