Dreamweaver - Hosting and nested tables

Author

Hosting and nested tables

Gary100

2004-04-22, 10:29 pm

Hi

I have two questions.

1) Is there anything I need to consider when approaching a host for my site?,
can anyone give some advice.

2 ) Also after reading some posts here and there in these forums, there seems
to be a lot of warning about using nested tables, I am a little worried as I
have just finished my site and I have used a lot of nested tables in my
website, can anyone tell me why nested tables are frowned upon ?

Joe Makowiec

2004-04-22, 10:29 pm

On Thu 22 Apr 2004 05:10:03p, Gary100 wrote in macromedia.dreamweaver:

> 1) Is there anything I need to consider when approaching a host for
> my site?, can anyone give some advice.

What do you need in a host? Define what you need, and that should tell you
what you need to look for. Specifically:
- Do you or will you need serverside scripting? If you need asp or
asp.net, then that pretty much restricts you to Windows/IIS hosts.
Otherwise, if you need/want php, cgi/perl, or ColdFusion, you can go with
either a Windows or a *nix host on IIS or Apache.
- How much storage will you need?
- How much bandwidth will you need?
- How many domain names do you want to use? Subdomains?

> 2 ) Also after reading some posts here and there in these forums,
> there seems
> to be a lot of warning about using nested tables, I am a little
> worried as I have just finished my site and I have used a lot of
> nested tables in my website, can anyone tell me why nested tables are
> frowned upon ?

*Complex* tables are frowned upon, 'cause they break easily. In fact, as
to using row/column spans, nested tables might be preferable.

Gary100

2004-04-22, 10:30 pm

Thanks joe

Well if only i knew what I needed !!
Serverside scripting , asp cgi ..... jeez now you got me worried, I'm not sure
what half of them mean.
I just want a web site I can update every couple of months , the bandwidth ,
storage and domain name I am ok with.
I have created my web site through dreamweaver , I am running windows pro ,
thats about as much as I know.

Joe Makowiec

2004-04-24, 5:29 pm

On 22 Apr 2004 in macromedia.dreamweaver, Gary100 wrote:

> Well if only i knew what I needed !!
> Serverside scripting , asp cgi ..... jeez now you got me worried,
> I'm not sure what half of them mean.
> I just want a web site I can update every couple of months , the
> bandwidth , storage and domain name I am ok with.

Sorry - was out of town for a couple of days.

What kind of site is this? Business? Your kids and digipix of their
cat? Hobby? If it's a hobby or family site, for the moment you might
want to use the free space your ISP probably provides you with.

If you really want or need your own domain name:
- pick a hosting provider - plenty of discussion about hosts here, in the
Project Seven forums (see http://projectseven.com/support/index.htm) and
at http://webhostingtalk.com/ My personal preference is for a Linux or
Unix host running Apache
- pick a registrar (I use GoDaddy http://godaddy.com/ and Register.com
http://register.com/) and register your domain name.

Some registrars also offer hosting packages; my personal preference is to
separate the two. In particular, some hosting/domain name packages
result in the host/registrar controlling the domain name, not you. You
*always* want to keep your domain name(s) under your control. Separating
the two functions is one pretty sure way of doing this.

At both the registrar's site and the hosting provider's site, there
should be instructions on how to set the domain name servers to refer
your domain name to your web space. Once that's done, in two to three
days your site should start appearing under your domain name. (It can
take that long for the information to percolate out over the net.)

For what it looks like your requirements are, you would probably want one
of the $5/month 'shared hosting' plans. At a bare minimum, they will
include web hosting, a package of email addresses (me@mydomain.invalid,
spouse@mydomain.invalid, ...), some scripting (usually some combination
of PHP, cgi/perl and some flavor of ASP) and a couple of other odds and
ends (control panel, ftp accounts). If you find that your needs change
in the future, most hosts will allow you to upgrade your account as your
needs change.

--
Joe Makowiec can be reached at:
http://makowiec.org/contact/?Joe