Help needed.

I am considering building a website to display a few sets, maybe include visitor comments. But I have a few questions for those who have already done so.

1. Does everyone use a hosting service? If so, what ones are the best? Can they do the visitor comment part?

2. Where do you buy the website address? Specifically, can you buy from one place and then have someone else host the set? I don't want to buy from godaddy, use their hosting, and then a year later try to leave but am unable to take the address with me.

3. Is Frontpage the default program to use? Actually, if you use a program, then upload it, how would you make changes without having to upload the whole thing again? And wouldn't it wipe out visitor comments?

Those are my main questions. Additioanl comments would be appreciated.

Hi Eric,

I just recently put up a website of my own. I had someone do my site design for me and she was pretty good about working with me through it and making changes I wanted to make to the design. I did get my domain through godaddy.com, let her know about it and she was able to use it and incorporate into what she preferred as a host which was homestead.com

She charged me I believe $125 to do the design of 5 pages. I just pay a monthly $5 or something around that for the homstead hosting. She also included in that price techinical support for a month for anything you would need that could arise.

As far as how easy it is to change things on the site, with homestead I could log in, change anything in an instant and with one hit of a button its online.

My site below I guess for comparitive purposes of what $125 gets you with a webdesigner.

www.vintagecardcollection.com

Eric:
Well, if you are bound and detirmed to have to have your own site, it will be some work and some expense.
The first thing you have to do it buy a domain name. For example, mine is silverghost1951.com
It is like buying air. That runs you about $30 a year. Next you have to find website builder. I looked at lots and finally went with Sitecube.com That runs you maybe $300 a year. Loading the pictures is awkward and time consuming. Then they start hitting you with more fees to send the pictures out to the search engines. I hardly even use my own site anymore. http://www.silverghost1951.com
As an alternative, consider an established picture hosting site. For years I used Webshots.com and displayed trading cards in albums as well as pulp art. Then Webshots began to get strange and start censoring my pictures and I would never post anything with swear words or nudity. They also have a new policy where you can't full size the pictures. So they are headed in the wrong direction. Still you can place albums there very, very easily.
see examples: http://community.webshots.com/user/silverghost1951
{Notice there I have kept a few several non sport trading card albums}

I have had very good success with Picasa. They are owned, I think, by Google. Very easy to load your albums with trading cards and add a caption.
examples: http://picasaweb.google.com/silverghost1951
Another web site I have just started playing with is PBase.com I think it is about $25 a year.

Hope this stuff helps.
JPB

If you have 2gb or less space wise, http://www.Photoshop.com/express is very nice and its free. Plus, its run by Adobe so you know it will look good.

Eric - this may seem like a good forum to ask this question, but it really is not. The reason: semantics! Certain terms may have entirely different meanings to different non-professional individuals. Not that any here would deliberately lead you astray, but it certainly could happen inadvertantly.

As an example:

Web hosting to me represents an internet company that hosts my data, but nothing else. I pay them "rent" each month to store my data in an internet-accessable storage facility. I own the "domain" name; and am responsible for making ALL changes and additions to the data.

To someone else, web hosting could mean a "turn-key" service company; one that would not only store the data, but also provide the programming where the individual could tell a representative of the company what is wanted, and the company would do it all. It can also mean anything inbetween.

As to some of your questions:

Domain name - lots of companies will "register" your domain name. Read the fine print in the registration. You CAN own the domain name and, within reason, take it where you wish. However, many ISP's (internet service providers) will require you to sign up for a fixed number of months (years) when they agree to host your domain. You would not be able to move it within the terms of the contract. I first started my website in 1998 with a local ISP (cost, and proximity). I moved it once (Yahoo) as the local ISP had an unacceptable amount of down time.

Uploading - think of a website as a dictionary; where the definition of a dictionary word corresponds to one "page" of the website, and the word itself corresponds to a link to the page. You can change and upload any single definition or page without changing any other page.

Programs - there are tons of programs which may be used. I maintain my entire website www.thecarburetorshop.com (hundreds of pages) with Microsoft Word for manipulating data and WS_FTP to move the data from my computer to the host (Yahoo) computer. I am not saying this is the best, or that it would be best even for you; but it works well for me.

I would highly suggest you find someone you know locally that has their own site, and would agree to help you get started. Take them to lunch and ask questions. Websites are NOT difficult (neither is walking, now); but you do need some local help (dialogue) to get you started.

And I will be happy to attempt to answer questions for you by telephone (number is on my website, along with hours); but would highly recommend local help.

Jon.

Lots of options are available. Here is a checklist of what you need:

1) Web address (your ".com" or whatever name)
Can be purchased from lots of different companies like "GoDaddy", etc. (I have all mine through a place called www.namesecure.com). This will run you about $10.00 a year with discounts for multiple years. You can point a web address to any web hosting site anywhere in the world.

2) Web Hosting (where your website actually resides)
Many companies who offer #1 above also offer this as well as lots of other places. This is actually really important as different places offer different options. Things to be concerned with: A) How much storage do they offer? B) How easy is it to access and change your website C) What web languages do they support? (for example PHP is a very powerfull website programming language that really makes your website dynamic) D) Do they offer database support? (MySQL is a very popular database that is FREE and works well with PHP. You will have to have this if you want people to enter information - like comments, etc. into your site. This is where you would store the information.) Many companies offer these as part of their hosting.

3) Web Design (your actual files and pictures)
Anyone can do this sort of thing with basic Windows Programs. Essentially, a website is a collection of documents that you can easily format and link together. If you have a database as a backbone your site can then become very dynamic and powerful. (Of course if you have good artistic/design skills you will have a nicer looking site but there are lots of people available who do this sort of thing and can help you make something that looks and works more professional - for a FEE!)

See - it is as easy as 1-2-3!

A cheap and good place to store your site is hostmonster.com
They charge just $5.95 per month and offer unlimited bandwidth and hosting space. They've been very dependable so far.