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heathesq

Mar 7, 2004, 6:16 AM

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Setting up a web page

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Our frac is considering setting up its own web page to carry rules, reports, and housing adds.

What sort of costs can we expect?

Would it be better to set it up in Canada or the States?

I might be webmaster. What programs can help me?

Any and all advice is welcome.

Roger Heath

Rolly

Mar 7, 2004, 8:52 AM

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Re: [heathesq] Setting up a web page

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>>What sort of costs can we expect?

You will need to register your domain name. That should cost less than US$100 -- probably much less. It will need to be renewed each year for around $35. The registration and renewals can be taken care for you by your web host. The web host is the company that provides the storage and server for your website. You create the website on your computer, and then upload it to your web host where it gets connected to the internet.

>>Would it be better to set it up in Canada or the States?

The internet knows no national borders. The best place to set it up is where you can get the best service. I am very pleased with my host https://digitronicweb.com They offer a free service for small websites. I started mine with their free service, but when it grew too large, I had to move to their paid service which costs about US$100 per year.

>>What programs can help me?

Cheap web builders (less than about US$100) are not going to allow you to do much. But they may be fairly easy to use. And not too expensive to throw away when you hit their limitations. I use FrontPage by Microsoft. It has a bit of a learning curve, but it works well, and you are not likely to outgrow it. One of the advantages of FrontPage is the availability of how-to books.

Rolly Pirate

(This post was edited by Rolly on Mar 7, 2004, 8:56 AM)

Mar 7, 2004, 10:15 PM

Post #3 of 3 (643 views)

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Re: [Rolly] Setting up a web page

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Domain name registration alone should actually run significantly less than $100 USD/year, more on the order of $10 to $20 USD. Try GoDaddy, ServerCentral (who's actually reselling registration via eNom, or Dotster. Even the evil bloodsuckers encarnate, Network Solutions is only charging $35/year, with discounts given for multi-year registrations.

I suspect the $100/year price included a "starter" hosting package, which typically includes a block of 1-10 email addresses/boxes, and a limited amount of webspace and monthly bandwidth. Unless you have big plans some of these packages are worthwhile investigating particularly as they often include simplified web page builder software.

One thing to consider with regards to Microsoft Frontpage is that is has a reputation for generating ugly, non-standards compliant code, which, except for very simple websites causes problems for browsers other than Internet Explorer and machines which do not have strong Microsoft underpinnings. For full functionality it also requires a webhost that provides access to "Frontpage extensions", which creates truely ugly directory structures.

The times I attempted to work with Frontpage, I found it to be extremely non-intuitive. Personally I'd either go cheap, or because there's learning time that's going to be invested step out and get something industrial strength (and unfortunately priced) like Macromedia Dreamweaver or Adobe GoLive.