brand spanking new

[brendacraig]

Im brand new and completely confused with the entire process here.
I have a temporary url and a host site at moon.powweb.com
On my temporary url www.brendaandcharliecraigcom.powweb.com I dont have anything that I have FTP. Can someone help me with this entire process? Also once my actual account is propagated will the tools I need to design the layout I want on my website be in the control panel? Yikes what a mess I have myself in....lol
Thank you.........

[RSaucier]

Welcome aboard!

First, take a deep breath...you've just signed on to your own personal black hole -- it will suck up all kinds of free time if you're not careful!

Note that your temp site address is just brendaandcharliecraigcom.powweb.com, no 'www'. Within a day or two, you should be able to get to www.brendaandcharliecraig.com with no trouble.

While the OPS panel is powerful, it's mainly designed to let you exert control over access to your site; DNS, FTP, POP3 and SMTP, etc.

You'll need to come up with an editing tool and, most likely, an FTP client. There are many free ones and a few that have purchase/registration costs -- some free ones blow the doors off the "for a price" applications.

Many of the editing tools (FrontPage, DreamWeaver, etc.) come with templates that will get you going quickly. After that, designing the layout can be done with programs like Adobe Photoshop, JASC PaintShop Pro, or Corel PhotoPaint or done on paper then transferred to those programs.

If this is a personal site, have fun with it! Don't worry that little blinky things will drive people nuts. YOU need to be happy with it!

This doesn't quite answer your questions but, be assured, there's usually someone around here on the forums who will be happy to offer help and advice.

Welcome aboard! You're about to embark on either a nightmare or one heckuva exciting and fun ride! :D

Robert

[Ddr]

As Robert said, just relax. Learning is a process. I think that asking "How do I do all of this?" is too big a question and will get you answers so deep that it will intimidate you.

My suggestion is that you come back here as many times as you want to with as many questions as you have, post a specific problem you have and get answers to that one. You will probably be surprised that there are usually a variety of answers to the same problem. Most of the people who post here are very competent and usually the advice given is great.

If you have not found one yet, maybe your first question would be about getting the right html editor for yourself. There are free ones and ones that cost hundreds of dollars. It is all up to you how much you want to spend. If you do not know anything about the code that makes webpages (html to begin with) then the more advanced, expensive tools will probably give you more features and require you to do less real code work. On the other hand if you know html, javascript, CSS, SSI and the other commonly used tools, you hardly need an html editor at all. You could just write your code in Notepad. It all comes down to what your abilities are.

Give us a starting point with as much information as you can and I am sure the Forum will help you find your solutions.

Dale

[brendacraig]

Ok now thoroughly confused....LOL
Let me ask like this. I went to tripod.com and built a little starter website in about 20 minutes. The ease of this was due to a little tool bar at the bottom of the page that had everything mapped out for me. How do I get something like this onto my temporary website?
Told you I am a greenhorn! lol
Thank you!

[Ddr]

Hi BrendaCraig

Here's a little insight into webhosts. Free hosts like Tripod, Geocities, and others that have since gone out of business, are all geared towards people that know little or nothing about the web or making webpages. They cater to people and give it to them for free. That is certainly a great thing. Its how I got started on the road to becoming a webmaster.

But after you finish with the free webhosts because they have gone belly up (you cant give it all away and expect to pay the electric bill) or they just dont provide you with services you want, you move up to the next level and pay a hosting service for more advanced features. One thing that is not typically included in a paid host's package are the basic site building tools that you got used to having at Tripod. They make life easy, but they are extremely limiting. You cant do very much of what the web will let you with those tools. You had restriction on you at Tripod that you dont have the knowledge to comprehend yet, but in time you will see that.

Powweb offers a huge package and features.....much more than most comparably priced hosts. But you will not find those site building tools here. You are going to have to either obtain software to create your webpage on your own computer and transfer the pages you build to brendaandcharliecraig.com or you will have to hire someone to do this for you.

Either way, there is help here for you. If you want the site built, there will probably be 50 Forum people that would do it for you at a reasonable price. If you want to learn how to use a web authoring tool on your own computer and upload it yourself, then we will help you learn that. Which way do you want to go? (I hope you want to learn how to do this yourself........)

Dale

[brendacraig]

Well Dale it looks like you and I are going to become bubbys(lol).
First off thank you for responding and trying to help me.
Your exactly right, I DO want to do this myself it is just a little overwhelming to say the least trying to comprehend all this.
I have exactly NO idea what in the world I am doing.(as you can tell) The other website that we have is hosted and maintained by someone else. Everytime we want a simple email change or any alter what so ever it is like a 20.00 or 30.00 charge and that can add up rather quickly which is exactly why I am here. I am a quick learner at most things so hopefully in time I will accomplish this! It is kinda like trying to learn to read in chinesse or something right now though : ) Thank you for your patience!
P.S. do you like country music? If so for your help I can get you an autographed picture of your choice...lol just let me know

[RSaucier]

You can also check at your local library or bookstore for beginning HTML books -- there are some good beginning HTML and "starting a web site" books available, I got one of the "for Dummies" books for my wife and after she started in on it she actually started to understand some of what I said when I talked to some fellow computer nerds :).

Don't doubt yourself and keep plugging away -- Ddr's right, there's a boatload of folks here who will help, mostly for no charge depending on what problem you're looking to have solved :).

Robert

[brendacraig]

Thank you Robert!
I guess my question would be where in the world do I start..lol?
Is it with a HTML book or something?
Do I have to wait for my actual domain to be whatever that word was progated? before I can start all this stuff?
Hopelessly lost in Tennessee : )

[rancher]

I agree with Robert.....get the ...Dummies book for HTML and start on page one. You will be far and away in better shape
than those who buy an editor that does it all.....because when something goes wrong (and believe me it will) they don't have a clue. As soon as you have a page or two created you can upload it via ftp to the Powweb server. There's a ton of info on these
forums and at help.powweb.com (http://help.powweb.com) .....but start at square one and go for it.

Enjoy!

Rancher

[Ddr]

Hi BrendaCraig

Thanks for the thoughtfullness. I am just happy to help where I can, no autographed pics necessary *grin*

I am a book person too. The one mentioned above is available everywhere and not expensive. Until you get that book, here is a link to a site that is one of the best for beginners, but also has a lot of much more advanced information too. The tutorials were written by Joe Burns, one of the best to ever help out people on the web. Here is the link:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/basics.html

There are a zillion resources like this on the web. You can learn everything from the basics to the most advanced stuff. Take a step at a time and visit this link. It will get you started off correctly. Dont be afraid to come back and ask again if you have questions on this stuff.

Dale

[alphadesk]

Here's a site that I still use for help ocasionally.
http://www.w3schools.com

I found this book to be useful when starting out.
HTML Visually.

And keep this in mind, that every single one of us was exactly where you are now at one time.

[SimCoWeb]

What HTML program are you using?

[(jj)]

Hi BrendaCraig,

Once you've done some reading up on HTML coding, you might want to check out 1st Page 2000 HTML Editor, unless you are going to hand code in Notepad. It is NOT a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor, but it does allow you to preview things as you go along. And the best part of it is, it's FREE!!

If you want to check it out, it can be found at http://www.evrsoft.com/

Good Luck, and Welcome to the PW forum family :)


Just my "For What It's Worth"

[marcus2000]

My favorite website for newbies is "Lissa Explains it All": http://www.lissaexplains.com/intro.shtml

It was written by an 11 year old, she has written the website for the complete beginner in language that we all understand - and she provides tools, scripts, examples and a whole lot more. (Plus she has advertising for PowWeb on her website!)

Brenda, it might be worthwhile creating a new folder on your computer and SAVE AS the webpages into it to read offline at your leisure.

Have fun with it :)

BTW, I had to laugh at RSaucier's "you've just signed on to your own personal black hole"

[sthunder]

I am new to this stuff myself....but don't be afraid to try. These folks here are willing to help. When I first started I read everything I could find. Here's a good one that I found to be of tremendous help:

http://builder.cnet.com/webbuilding/pages/Authoring/Newbies/?st.cn.8172-7-265905.more.bu_newbies

A must-read is the "Yale Style Manual" linked at this address. Don't be afraid of HTML...you'll catch on and learn as you go. Keep it simple starting out so you don't get overwhelmed.

Most of all have fun learning !!!

[TERRELL]

When I 1st signed up for powweb.I thought to myself.What the hell am I doing.I know nothing about webdesigning.Then I purchased a little book called "Webpages the smart way by:Joseph T.Sinclair".(:Whispers:Its like one of those books for dummies).Very informative and instead of lengthy explanations.It walks you threw with pictures and images leading the way.The easiest program on planet earth to design with is Netscape Composer.Its a wysiwyg program.Its free downloadable program from netscape.You can design a powerful site with that program.Also,these forums is very helpful.Gee,these forums is my manual.Any question you ask,we're willing to answer them.The people in these forums don't look down at anyone cuz their a newbie.I know cuz I was in your shoes.Now I gotta site thats damn near giving professionals a run for their money.
Also,check out http://coolpage.com they have programs also very easy to use to design sites.Until then.see-yaaaaaaaaaaaa:) .

[Laurey]

I'll add a couple more tips into the barrel..

Once you have learned the basics, whether it be from book & practice or informational websites & practice.. and understand different tags & what they mean a bit..

VIEW SOURCE

If you see a page.. and wonder how they did it.. choose 'view/source' and the code will show. Save it. Tear it apart. Change margins, add borders to tables.. see how they line up, . See what makes it tick (just don't blatently copy it.. someone put alot of time into that page, and even if it doesn't say so.. it IS copyrighted).

When I first started w/HTML, background images weren't allowed yet, you couldn't color your font.. and 'blink' had yet to be devised. Been 'playing' around for quite awhile.. but I STILL use that trick to figure out just what's going on there.. and how'd they do that??? and I've learned more from it than any other book or website could've taught me.

Add in some validation, and you're good to go (with any help you need in these forums :)
http://www.htmlvalidator.com
http://validator.w3.org/

Good luck!