Anyone want to help me with my website?

08/19/2005 04:33:49 PM · #26

Thanks everyone --- I'm putting this all together and have been working hard on it! (well, hard enough)

theSaj

Canon EOS-20D

08/19/2005 04:40:03 PM · #27

As a professional web developer, I actually recommend Frontpage for novices. It is much easier and more forgiving than Dreamweaver. Of note, if you do use Frontpage you should go into the options and uncheck the ones that say "allow Frontpage to modify code" and check the ones that say "preserve original code".

When this is done, most of Frontpage's infamous behaviors are negated (but not all).

And for a beginnger, Frontpage's nice "Word Processor" style interface is very easy to get used to.

But either require "some" understanding of HTML cause both make mistakes and being able to look at the code and say "aha...that's what needs changing" is a necessary skill. Hence, my recommendation of SAM's HTML book. It's not too big. Will cover the very basics. And give you a rudimentary understanding. Then you can progress to more advanced material. (CSS/XML/Flash/etc.)

Also realize at some point you're going to want to have a more dynamic site - instead of uploading and organizing all your photos you'll want the site to do such. This will require a 3rd party tool or learning a dynamic web scripting language such as (Perl/PHP/ASP/JSP/ColdFusion/Flash). Of these, ColdFusion is by far the easiest to learn and work with and the most forgiving and intuitive. But not as well supported by hosting companies. PHP is popular in the open source/'nix communities. ASP for the Windows & .NET fiends. Flash is cumbersome but amazing in what it can do. Very few have a clue as to how powerful a tool Flash has become in recent years.

08/19/2005 04:48:16 PM · #28

I've got CuteFTP and SimpleViewer... I'm going to be putting up a test gallery momentarily. I have nooo idea what i'm doing :)

08/19/2005 04:58:15 PM · #29

Okay so here's my question. In CuteFTP I have my files uploaded to right-hand side of the interface. Why don't these files show up on my site?

I uploaded all of the files that I downloaded for SimpleViewer.

WAKE UP BENNNNNNNNN

Message edited by author 2005-08-19 16:59:30.

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

08/19/2005 05:00:57 PM · #30

what's your URL... I'll take a look

Balko

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

08/19/2005 05:01:46 PM · #31

I have been with many, many hosting companies and I recommend GetYour Host for hosting. You will also get Coppermine Gallery and Wordpress Blog for free. How can you go wrong for $1.95 / month hosting??

I have my site theREDpixel hosted there.

Lunar Pages is good too, but a bit more expensive. I have another site there.

I have done my own sites for 10+ years and use Dreamweaver, though it is not something you can learn ovenight :)

Message edited by author 2005-08-19 17:02:34.

Beetle

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

08/19/2005 05:03:03 PM · #32

Originally posted by theSaj:

Of note, if you do use Frontpage you should go into the options and uncheck the ones that say "allow Frontpage to modify code" and check the ones that say "preserve original code".

Jason, I just tried to follow your advice, but I can't find that option - and I DID look around for it!
I am using (or rather: stumbling my way through FrontPage 2002).
Can you point the way for me, please?

Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II

08/19/2005 05:03:05 PM · #33

Originally posted by ldowse:

what's your URL... I'll take a look

www.leesaper.com

BobsterLobster

Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro

08/19/2005 05:05:16 PM · #34

I don't understand why many people need dedicated ftp software... Internet Explorer seems pretty adequate to me... just put your ftp address in the address bar (ftp://blah.com for example), put your username and password in the prompt and away you go, just treat it like a normal explorer window.

08/19/2005 05:06:03 PM · #35

Here are a list of directions that SimpleViewer gives you.

I'm pretty sure I've gone up to 7 correctly but now I'm at a deadlock.

Thanks,
Lee

08/19/2005 05:07:55 PM · #36

Originally posted by BobsterLobster:

I agree... I just uploaded a site I designed a few minutes ago using that same method sample work.

Lee- I checked the URL and just get the host comany's generic web page. What file(s) have you uploaded?

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

08/19/2005 05:09:15 PM · #37

Originally posted by ldowse:

Lee- I checked the URL and just get the host comany's generic web page. What file(s) have you uploaded?

I uploaded all of the files that were given to me from SimpleViewer, including a set of my own images that I moved into the Images folder (see my above post).

Art Roflmao

Canon EOS-6D Mark II

08/19/2005 05:11:12 PM · #38

Originally posted by Tranquil:

Here are a list of directions that SimpleViewer gives you.

I'm pretty sure I've gone up to 7 correctly but now I'm at a deadlock.

Thanks,
Lee

Now you need to run the build script:
//www.leesaper.com/myGallery/buildgallery.php

But it looks like your domain name may not be pointing to your host. You need to set the correct nameservers at your domain registrar - I didn't read if you registered the name and got hosting at the same time/place...

08/19/2005 05:14:15 PM · #39

I have a registered domain name - www.leesaper.com... the hosting/domain registration were from the same place.

Message edited by author 2005-08-19 17:16:20.

theSaj

Canon EOS-20D

08/19/2005 05:35:56 PM · #40

Originally posted by Beetle:

Originally posted by theSaj:
Of note, if you do use Frontpage you should go into the options and uncheck the ones that say "allow Frontpage to modify code" and check the ones that say "preserve original code".

Jason, I just tried to follow your advice, but I can't find that option - and I DID look around for it!
I am using (or rather: stumbling my way through FrontPage 2002).
Can you point the way for me, please?

Go to TOOLS select "Page Options" then click on the tab "HTML Source".

There is a radio button "When Saving file(s):

Make sure you you check off "Preserve existing HTML"

There are a few other check boxes in those tabs for whether to use DIV tags or standard HTML tags, etc.

Also view the "compatibility" selections.

These seem to reduce some of Frontpage's nuisances. (And this is for Frontpage XP)

There might have been a few other settings I also changed but I don't recall the others...we're going back a couple years now.

08/19/2005 05:40:22 PM · #41

I'm not familiar with SimpleViewer or any of the other applications you are using. I use a combination of Flash MX, Dreamweaver, and a couple of other applications. For the general user, these are way overkill. There is nothing in Dreamweaver that can not be accomplished by using something as simple as Notepad. The interface is just a heck of a lot easier (less hand coding).

But for the subject at hand. Some simple web basics. If your domain reg and hosting are at the same place, the nameservers SHOULD resolve and point to the correct location. What is meant by that is when you type in //www.leesaper.com, the "named URL" is pointed to a specific IP address. This is all handled by nameservers and DNS behind the scenes. Once the address is resolved and pointing to the IP address of the HOST, one more step must be completed for the site to be "viewable". The HOST has "default" files that it searches for as "home" pages. Certain pages have priority over others.

For example if you are building a site that is not completed, you may have an under construction page called default.htm which is set as the second priority page and a page called home.html set as the first priority page. As long as you do not have a page called home.html, every time DNS resolves your URL, the under construction page is displayed. Once you upload your home.html page, magically your URL will then begin to display that page. This happens because the home.html takes priority over the default.htm page.

Wow, that sounds confusing to me and I kind of understand how it all works.... Anyway, the point to my madness is that you probably have to have a specific named page ie: home.htm, home.html, main.htm, main.html, home.php, etc. for the correct home page to be displayed. The specific name of this page can be provided by your HOST. And as BobsterLobster stated, I never use FTP upload programs. IE with the correct username and password works great for me and looks like a simple directory browser.

I hope this helps.

sodastreamer

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

08/19/2005 05:46:32 PM · #42

if you just want to create a site full of your images for people to look at then jalbum ( //www.jalbum.net ) is the way to go... i use this all of the time for creating little photo demos..

as for ftp software you can't go wrong with filezilla (
//filezilla.sourceforge.net/ )

both are freeware and actually really good at what they do.

You don't need any we development skill to use jalbum - even though i'm a prefessional programmer this is still the tool i'd use,it also creates readable code which you can learn from too..

08/19/2005 06:42:15 PM · #43

I see you got it up and running! Looks great!

08/19/2005 06:54:12 PM · #44

This was my old page that was basically worthless. All done on templates and such. I'm in frustrated-mode and the way things are going... I'm going to give up. I can't even get a page up to say "under contruction" which translates to: I'm screwed. My father is knowledgeable in this stuff so I will talk to him. Thanks everyone so far!

theSaj

Canon EOS-20D

08/20/2005 11:38:37 PM · #45

Real slow download...even with Broadband(DSL).

Way way way too long to wait....you've already lost 90% of your customers. It might have some animated actions but it's way too long of a download.

EddyG

Canon EOS-1D Mark II