Doing real website for first time: any help and pointers?

[axelfox]

I posted this in another thread, but I am doing a website for a small, profitable business. Under the advice of some members, I have decided to register the domain name and sign up for webhosting services to handle the website.

I've made my own personal sites through free hosting (ie homepage), but never had any experience with the real deal. Is there a website, or could somebody specifically point the steps into having a commercial website? I read the post in the hot deals that pointed some steps, but i need it to be more specific if possible.
This would be my first encounter with registering and hosting, and I wanted to get some pointers and which pitfalls to avoid.

I read the hot deal post about servercentral.net, and may go with them. I have heard good things about dotster.com also. I need to know the terms involved (such as redirect) and what/how is "PHP3, MySQL, CGI, realserver G2" involved. My guess is support for cgi scripts (ie message boards?), database, etc.

what would be good prices on webhosting and domain registeration?

thanks in advanced
dan

wish me luck!

 

[KDOG]

Good post. I'd like to know what is a good WYSIWYG editor. Using the Frontpage Express 2.0 is suck yo!!

 

[axelfox]

Best one I think is Dreamweaver. Its a bit steep if you're gonna pay for it..

Hehe, I thought someone really answered my post!

 

[denali]

axelfox,
PHP is a hypertext preprocessor like ASP it allows you to do programming in the HTML/PHP file and have the results displayed in the browser. http://www.php.net

MySQL is a Relational database that you can use either for free or for not much money depending on exactly what you are using it for.
http://www.mysql.com/

CGI stands for common gateway interface. basically this allows you to write scripts or programs in any language and have the results displayed in the browser. Some of the more common languages for writting CGI programs are PERL and Python.

Realserver G2 is the server that allows a web site to serve RealMedia files, audio and video.

What did you have in mind for the website depending on what you need/want to do with the site will determine which if any of these or other features you will need from the hosting company. I would make sure that they have multiple connections to the Internet through various providers. Also check and see if they do backups of your site or if you are responsible for that.

KDOG, you might want to check out HomeSite http://www.allaire.com/Products/HomeSite/ I don't sctually use it but have heard nothing but good things about it. You might be better off just using a text editor if you already know HTML or want to learn it.

 

[axelfox]

This is a small store that mostly does business through wholesale, not much through the door traffic. For now, I just want to get him up on the web so that customers and affiliates know what we do and where are we located. The site is pretty basic and not very fancy, but it gets the job done.

I think I will go with horizonws.com, since it was recommended by many people in this forum. Seems pretty reasonable. I'm new to all of this, so I hope I do well.

Dan

 

[thirdkind]

I can't read a thread that mentions HomeSite without chiming in, as I'm the resident HomeSite evangelist

Check out my review here:

http://www.codebloat.com/reviews/homesite45/homesite45.shtml

Hand coder's dream with a good WYSIWYG component thrown in. You won't believe all the stuff this proggie can do.

As for hosting suggestions axelfox, I use http://www.hostpro.com/. About $20 a month for a decent plan, although they do have cheaper I believe.

 

[denali]

Well, if you don't need to do ecommerce then I doubt that you would need any of the things that you mentioned such as PHP, MySQL, CGI.
If you are going to want to do ecommerce I would try and find a compnay that makes that most of their business. Don't know any good hosting comanies for ecommerce as I have not had the need to do that yet.

You might want to check and see if they support the tools that you will use.

 

[shopbruin]

I've used Dreamweaver to build a site for a class I took. It was extremely easy to use, which was a plus for the girls in the group, being that I was the only one with HTML experience. Some of the aspects of it are a little tricky to master though. If you think you can build the site in less than 30 days, you can download it for free from Macromedia's website. When I checked at Fry's I believe Dreamweaver was around 200 maybe? Find a student and see if they could get a better deal for you at school. Hehe

 

[Aboroth]

A good host is http://www.internetconnection.net. You get 30 megs of space and unlimited bandwidth for twenty bucks a month, with other stuff thrown in. I have used them a couple times. Unlimited bandwidth is the most important thing to me.
I had a site hosted with a place that gave 2GB of bandwidth per month that was quickly used up. They charged me a bundle for the rest, a lot extra.
30MB is usually more than enough unless you are serving programs or MP3s. Some places say they will give you unlimited space, but they have limits and don't say so up front. Once you start filling up their hard drive they WILL tell you and start charging you more. Plus it will all be legal because you forgot to completely read the contract...