Website Builders

[Jayhad]

For those of you that have used a website builder; what is a good one out there for a beginner? I would prefer one that doesn't require me to use thier hosting services.

 

Thanks

[Flytyer]

Are you referring to a service or a program for building? iWeb if you have a Mac is easy

[headscan]

iWeb if you have a Mac is easy

Agreed.

 

A lot also depends on what you want the site to do. Building an ecommerce site is much different than just hosting pictures for your family to view.

[Jayhad]

I don't have a mac and don't plan on buying one for a website. Don't need any ecommerce. Just looking for thoughts on a PC compatible software

[Flytyer]

Microsoft front page is easy to use on the PC platform.......it comes with MS office, the wife has it on her machine

[Flytyer]

This may be of help to you

 

http://website-creation-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

[midgetwaiter]

How big of a site are we talking about here? How often are you going to update it?

 

For a site with say 15+ pages and fairly frequent updates it is worth looking at some thing like joomla. It's a server based content management system so you don't need any software on your machine, easy to update and manage. There are free and commercial skins you can use to give the thing the look you want.

 

www.joomla.org

 

You'd need some place that hosts joomla sites, I'm pretty happy with www.inmotionhosting.com. Not the cheapest outfit but they do good work.

 

Because joomla is a fairly standard package you would be able to move it pretty easily to another host if you needed to.

 

 

[Hawgstoppah]

something really easy, but it does require you to use their hosting, but it's pretty cheap for the quality you get.

 

www.tripod.com

 

I built more than a few websites on it, including www.bowriveradventures.com and the old bowcrow web site www.bowcrow.ca was started there and is still on there. It's actually been really, really reliable as a server 99.999% uptime, honestly... Ive never seen any of these sites down, ever.

 

I also built www.fishandskialberta.com using the same tripod software. Theyve decided to not pay the hosting therefore there are adds on their site now. The hosting is cheap, but if you pay for it there are no adds, if you want free there are adds. As long as you have a good eye for imagery and can create your own effectively, tripod is a great tool for the creation of the site itself.

 

Cheers.

[bhurt]

I would personally use Dreamweaver for PC, the I like about this is if you need the code with a flick of the button it gives you your code.

[Nick0Danger]

Dream weaver, by far, you can code by hand if you want and see it grow or do the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) with it and see the code appear (although i do clean up the code but the newer versions do a cleaner job) Stay away from front page. Did you know that major websites like google, NYtimes, and such are still done in good old notepad that comes with ever windows machine (okay maybe a fancier version but they can be done in notepad even the most fancy of sites)

[headscan]

Uh, Dreamweaver is fine and all, but I don't think I'd call it a good one for a beginner which is what Jay said he was looking for. At $500 it's probably a lot more than he's looking for...

 

Take a look at these guys:

http://www.canadianwebhosting.com/

 

I used to host my site there until I got a .Mac subscription and they offer a web building app along with the hosting. Also try googling "wysiwyg". Haven't used a PC in a while so I can't help with Windows software.

[robert]

For those of you that have used a website builder; what is a good one out there for a beginner? I would prefer one that doesn't require me to use thier hosting services.

 

Thanks

 

You mention that you don't want to use someone elses hosting service? Are you planning on purchasing a hosting plan for yourself? Cause they are pretty cheap these days and you have full control of your site - many of these freebie sites do not give you a copy of what you've created.

 

Not trying to advertise here, but I've been using downtownhost.com for the last couple of years and their cpanel includes a website builder, tho i've never used it and I can't vouch for it.

 

Joomla was mentioned, yes it's great, have a couple of websites built with it now. It's a learning curve but so is basic html - and everything you do is done through your website once the software is installed and linked to your mysql database. Nothing really uploaded or downloaded. Pages are created as articles, you create a new article and publish it then create a link... There are many templates out there, both free and paid. search google for "free joomla templates" and you'll spend hours searching them. Joomla isn't the only content management system but it's one of the most common.

 

You can also look at blogging software if you have your own host - something like wordpress - again, many free themes out there. Easy to use, and again, all the pages are created through the website.

 

Forum software can be effective as well, i've used a combination of SMF forum software with a tinyportal front end to create the entire site. There are many free forum software packages out there to choose from. Again, publish articles as webpages through tinyportal and you're good to go. Again, many free themes on the net that you can work with and modify to your own.

 

 

Basically it boils down to what you want, and what you're trying to do. Pm me if you want to know more, i'm not the most creative but i've been dealing with most of this web software for years now.