To be honest all you really need to author your own web page is a text editor and a FTP client. I do quick fixes on web pages all the time using nothing more than MS Notepad and FileZilla.
Now, that said, if you are just starting out I would highly discourage that. You have enough other things to worry about without teaching yourself HTML and how to manually upload files.
But if you are so inclined see the resources below for more information.
I have been doing custom website development for about 4 years now and I have always used Adobe Dreamweaver to build my sites with. And yeah, before you say it, I know… it used to be a Macromedia product.
There are a lot of “cheaper’ and even free tools out there. I have tried and tested a lot of them but I always go back to Adobe Dreamweaver. One, because that’s what I’m comfortable with. And two, I really think it is easier and faster to use.
I have tried the Microsoft Express editions. And I must say they are very impressive. But… because I prefer PHP/MySQL on the backend (I will post about that another day) Dreamweaver really simplifies a lot of my development tasks.
I’m not going to lie to you, it’s kind of expensive. But because of how much it will allow even an inexperienced user to accomplish, it can easily pay for itself on what you save by not paying others to do it for you.
Oh.. and one side note, I do own the entire Adobe Creative Suite, but I really only seem to use the Dreamweaver and Fireworks products. Your mileage may vary.
Before you buy it, you may want to download the trial version to make sure this is the tool for you.
I will write a more detailed article for this later because it can be really confusing. But for the sake of keeping people moving I will give a short overview here.
Internet Service Provider (ISP): This is the company that actually connects you to the Internet. For home users this may be like Comcast, AOL, Qwest or similar.
So when you say “I have DSL.”, or “I have cable”, the company providing that service is your ISP.
Hosting: This is the company that stores your files and sometimes database up on the Internet for you. A lot of time this is also the company that provides your email as well.
Thus, when you upload your brand new web page to the Internet, you are “publishing” it to your hosting service, or hosting provider.
Now here is where everything gets a bit confusing. This may or may not be the same vendor.
IE. I have Comcast cable at my home office. They provide me with a free email <my_email>@comcast.net. They also provide me with a small amount of free hosting I can use to publish a personal web page.
BUT… this blog is “hosted” at ning.com for me, and my business sites are located at several other vendor locations.
So to summarize… I get my high-speed Internet through Comcast my ISP. Then I build my websites on HostGator, my web hosting provider.
My original goal with this site was to teach some of my friends how this whole web site, web page stuff works, but I decided “Meh!”, I’ll show anybody who wants to know.
To be honest it really isn’t difficult, there are just quite a few pieces. Once you know what those pieces are and how they work, the clouds will part, the sun will come out, and you will be able to bask on the beach of Internet geek-dom. Hehe!
So, as I try to post a few how-to articles and videos feel free to let me know if there is something you would like to see on here. If there are enough people interested and more importantly if I can actually answer it, I will.
NOTICE - NO MEAN PEOPLE ALLOWED!!
If you don’t agree with what I’m saying or how I’m doing something, that’s great. I love to learn knew things!! But share your comments with us nicely or go find another sandbox to play in.
Well, good luck with your journey and let me know how I can help!!
DW Kickstart - Learn to build and market your own website
