Advice on starting website

**angels355** · 07-07-2009, 01:45 AM

Fees and endless rules drive me crazy on some web sites where you can sell your stuff, even worse are rude, hostile, profane, druggie, possibly dangerous people associated with other web sites that allow you to sell. I really have a bunch of stuff to sell, but I was thinking possibly it might be better if I post these things on my own web site.

I haven't thought of a central theme for the web site, like aviation or entertainment, science or astronomy, duh. I guess I can think that over.

There is free web hosting which is a good thing, but I wonder if there are a lot of rules involved, for example I think that Microsoft offers free web hosting. I'm just sort of paranoid with regards to rules because people can just simply lie and take you down even if in actuality you have obeyed the rules. I'm not actually paranoid, because it does happen.

So I was wondering if it would be better to subscribe to a professional web hosting site like go daddy?

Another thing I have been wondering about is how to construct the website. I just bought front page 2002, however there are other open source programs. Is there a difference between web sites created with frontpage vs. open source programs with regard to security vulnerabilities? Would a web site created with open source programs have less security vulnerabilities?

Also there's the question of what such products licenses allow you to do. I know that the open source programs would allow you to do absolutely anything, business or personal, with the output. But how about frontpage? Is the output strictly limited to personal use and not business use? If so then I might as well build a site from the start with open source programs, or what?

If you guys have any suggestions I would appreciate it. I would like to sell my stuff, but it would be good to have a central theme that might allow me to pursue possibly a career objective.

***loki*** · 07-07-2009, 02:40 AM

Website security generally has more to do with how the server is configured, not the tools you use to create the website.

As for tools, you can use everything from Notepad to WYSIWYG programs that cost hundreds of dollars. I would try to avoid Frontpage as it is no longer supported, and tended to generate HTML that wouldn't work well in browsers other than Internet Explorer. It also usually required special extensions on the server (though most ISPs did support them). Don't know if it had restrictions on creating personal or commercial sites or not, though I don't think it did.

Does your ISP include web space with your internet account? Many do include at least enough space for a small site. They may also have recommendations for tools to use and be able to provide some support.

Using something like Windows Live Spaces or Google's Blogspot may be a bit easier to get started with. They are geared towards blogs and aren't as flexible if you don't like their layouts or want to do something they aren't set up for.

**angels355** · 07-07-2009, 03:38 AM

Thanks very much. I thought I would have to use opensource, I'm glad it's available.

I'm going to avoid a forum website, I can barely keep up with this forum!

I've seen a couple of opensource programs, I'll have to try them, have you seen one that is especially good?

**azur** · 07-07-2009, 05:56 AM

What tool depends on what you want to do...

- If you want a GUI, click, drag, type, insert picture there, horizontal rule there type tool. I suggest KompoZer, an open source updated version of NVU, which was originally Mozilla Composer, a long time ago... http://www.kompozer.net/

- Text editor. Write the html yourself. There's literally hundreds of these, it's a matter of trying what you like.

As for hosting....

- Free. It'll either be ad supported, or have some horrible restrictions on it. No free lunch. You usually have some horrible/difficult to remember web address too and the site may be simply deleted if your account is left inactive for too long.

- Payware. Given that this will be a small site, low traffic (for now at least), http://www.nearlyfreespeech.net is great. It's 'prepaid' - you only pay for what you use. In the last 6 months one of my small sites has only cost about $15. Alternatively there's pay by the month. Dreamhost is popular for that. 5.95USD/month. There's plenty of coupons which can give you that first year for almost free... but remember you'll have to start paying monthly again in 12 months.

Some of the flight sim websites offer some form of hosting on an individual basis for FS related things. Some free, some charge stupid amounts.

**angels355** · 07-07-2009, 01:39 PM

Thanks Azur that's very nice of you. If I go the payware route I thought godaddy.com looked good and doesn't seem to cost too much, and I think they are professional as they host FS .Com.

I'll have to see what restrictions Microsoft's free web hosting requires.

**Ragtopjohnny** · 07-09-2009, 09:36 AM

Angels:

Check out Yahoo small business plan. I have 39.95 every 3 months and it's UNLIMITED storage space. You can't go wrong with that

**angels355** · 07-09-2009, 02:50 PM

Originally Posted by Ragtopjohnny

Angels:

Check out Yahoo small business plan. I have 39.95 every 3 months and it's UNLIMITED storage space. You can't go wrong with that

Thanks John!

**Flying Officer Jevans** · 07-09-2009, 03:25 PM

I am the webmaster for the site John and I run and I can say our experience has been positive with Yahoo. I can upload all sorts of stuff and never worry about running out of space( I've got a forum living on there now, ready for when we go live with Airwolf.)

Using free webspace is NEVER a good idea if you want to do anything remotely complicated. Selling stuff and forums won't be possible with free web hosts, unless they're a lot more generous than when I remember them.

As for security, it doesn't matter what you use to code it - security is up to the web host, really. I code manually, but some people use expensive web editors like Dreamweaver. Either way, the code that comes out the end is usually the same - HTML(You could look at the source of our website for a start...

)
You'll want to lean at least the basics of HTML, even if you use a drag-and-drop editor. There's some stuff available for linux that will do very well to code in, too. Look in your package manager.

There are loads of forum scripts about, but the one I am useing is called SMF. It is really quite good, but VBullitin, yaBB and so on will work as well. Just make sure it will work on your server. Some use a thing called PHP/MySQL, some will use ASP or Pearl. These are different scripting languages, a bit like addons for HTML. PHP is probably the most common.

As for open source, it doesn't matter in this case. As far as I know, there is no clause anyware in the ELUA of Frontpage or any other web editor that I have that restricts what you can do with what you make. You can use Notepad or Kedit, Dreamweaver or QT, it won't matter.
On the other hand, the web host might. Generally though, restrictions only apply to free or really cheap webspace.

Sorry for going on a bit, if there's anything you don't understand, don't hesitate to ask!

**angels355** · 07-09-2009, 03:59 PM

Thanks very much Jevans, your guys'website looks great. I really appreciate the help, and thanks for the advice about free web sites as a no go.

**Flying Officer Jevans** · 07-09-2009, 04:26 PM

It's a pleasure. I wouldn't say free web hosting is completely no go, but for anything beyond a static personal page, you need to pay, really, to do anything approaching what you want to do.