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Completely, totally lost..........
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| fowlplay.gourmet@gmail.com 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| I pay for a website....let me begin there. www.fowlplayseasoning.com
It has been almost 3 months now....I have tried repeatedly to build the
site with their 'site studio' program but can not get satisfactory
results...just crap like you see there.
I've tried to create pages on my computer and upload using the site
studio and after about 12 hours (no joke) of watching the 'uploading
files' window I give up. That has happened three times. The last time
I finally went to bed and when I came back in the morning it was still
loading.
I joined this group thinking I might be able to pick up some clues on
direction to take but maybe this is just over my head. At this point
I'm not even trying to have a point of sale on the site...just
information about the product and locations where it can be purchased.
So now...
I'm asking for help. If anyone wants to offer free advice I will be
forever grateful. If not and anyone would like to offer his/her help
for $$$, please give me an idea of what you would charge.
Either way, thanks and I find the info here enlightening, if not
amazing.
RB
| |
| Marc Bissonnette 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| "fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX" <fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX> altered the
spacetime fabric by disgorging news:1163561000.259823.278420
@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:
> I pay for a website....let me begin there. www.fowlplayseasoning.com
>
> It has been almost 3 months now....I have tried repeatedly to build the
> site with their 'site studio' program but can not get satisfactory
> results...just crap like you see there.
>
> I've tried to create pages on my computer and upload using the site
> studio and after about 12 hours (no joke) of watching the 'uploading
> files' window I give up. That has happened three times. The last time
> I finally went to bed and when I came back in the morning it was still
> loading.
>
> I joined this group thinking I might be able to pick up some clues on
> direction to take but maybe this is just over my head. At this point
> I'm not even trying to have a point of sale on the site...just
> information about the product and locations where it can be purchased.
> So now...
>
> I'm asking for help. If anyone wants to offer free advice I will be
> forever grateful. If not and anyone would like to offer his/her help
> for $$$, please give me an idea of what you would charge.
>
> Either way, thanks and I find the info here enlightening, if not
> amazing.
If you are going to be the regular maintainer of a site - any site - The
absolute, single best thing you should start with is the knowledge of
HTML.
Pick up any book on HTML for beginners: The language is nearly all
English, abbreviation-based.
For example: To start *B*olding, <B> to end *B*olding </B>
To start a *P*aragraph, <P> to end a *P*aragraph, </P>
To start *I*talicizing, <I>, to end *I*talicizing, </I>
and so on.
You will find that a great many "features" of WYSIWYG editors (What You
See Is What You Get) end up creating a bunch of gibberish or bloated code
that just plain slow your site down. What is worse is that without
knowing the basics of the layout/markup code (HTML), you can't even
figure out *what* it was that the editor screwed up.
Your tools for very basic website maintenance should be:
Your website host. (Should allow you full FTP access, full stats access
or decent analytical software to process your stats) full CGI (or
<shudder> ASP if that's your pleasure) access/ability and, ideally, a
database with unlimited tables, if not necessarily unlimited storage (As
a matter of fact, run far and fast from *any* host that offers unlimited
storage)
Your text editor. Notepad will do to start, though there are others both
free and for-money that highlight the reserved words of a language
(Highlighting the <B> and the <P> and the <I> for example)
I use UltraEdit ( http://www.ultraedit.com ) for both HTML and Perl:
IMNSHO, it's the best darned editor out there for WinBlows
Your FTP client. Should support automatic type detection (ASCII vs
Binary), ideally to future proof it, it should support secure FTP, as
well. Mine is WS-FTP Professional ( http://www.ipswitch.com )
Your graphics client, at least for the very basics of cropping and
resizing images. I'm no graphics artist (Hell, I have *zero* artistic
talent), so I use the Gimp, a free, open-source editor (
http://www.gimp.org/ )
Lastly, use GIYF - Google Is Your Friend. There are a bazillion minus one
HTML help sites out there to answer your most common questions. You've
got this newsgroup here to help you out after you've tried to help
yourself. Seriously: Read this:
http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
It is *extremely* useful, *extremely* educational and it'll help
immensely in teaching you to self-educate.
Other than that, good luck and I hope to see you as (yet another) regular
in a.w.w. :)
--
Marc Bissonnette
Looking for a new ISP? http://www.canadianisp.com
Largest ISP comparison site across Canada.
| |
| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Marc Bissonnette <dragnet\_@_/internalysis.com> wrote:
> For example: To start *B*olding, <B> to end *B*olding </B>
....
> To start *I*talicizing, <I>, to end *I*talicizing, </I>
As a side note personally I think one should avoid those 2 in most
circumstances. It's better to ask yourself, why do I want to make this
bold or italic? If it's to emphasize, use <em>...</em>, if it is to make
a stronger point, use <strong>...</strong>.
This is a very imporant but sadly often overlooked idea behind HTML,
with the language elements you describe *what* a piece of text is, not
how it should look. So a piece of text can be "a paragrah", or
emphasized.
With HTML you define what each piece of text *is*, and with CSS you
define how it looks (sounds). So in CSS you can specify that the em
element makes the text it contains looks bold and red.
> Your text editor. Notepad will do to start,
Notepad is IMNSHO in many cases a bad advice and I strongly suggest not
to mention it.
There are plenty of general text editors out there that are free, and
offer a lot of extras that assist in writing HTML like syntax
highlighting, clip libraries, and project management. I myself prefer
TextPad (not free).
> Your FTP client. Should support automatic type detection (ASCII vs
> Binary), ideally to future proof it, it should support secure FTP, as
> well.
SFTP doesn't distinguish between binary and ascii afaik, yet I do
recommend SFTP over normal FTP for security reasons. With TextPad, and
probably most other editors, you can specify to use Unix line endings,
which make your files shorter (a bit), and can be safely transfered in
binary mode. (AFAIK, for webservers it often doesn't matter if DOS line
endings are used, for other things it does, PERL scripts for example).
> Mine is WS-FTP Professional ( http://www.ipswitch.com )
Mine is either the thingy that comes with PuTTY (free, great for
scripting automated uploads/downloads), or FileZilla (free,
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/) (And on rare occasions I use the
command line ftp that comes with Windows)
> Your graphics client, at least for the very basics of cropping and
> resizing images. I'm no graphics artist (Hell, I have *zero* artistic
> talent), so I use the Gimp, a free, open-source editor (
> http://www.gimp.org/ )
I've looked at GIMP several times, and every time I considered it (the
UI that is) crap. I currently use Irfanview for cropping/resizing, but
am considering buying Pixel:
http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12
> Lastly, use GIYF - Google Is Your Friend. There are a bazillion minus
> one HTML help sites out there to answer your most common questions.
> You've got this newsgroup here to help you out after you've tried to
> help yourself. Seriously: Read this:
> http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
> It is *extremely* useful, *extremely* educational and it'll help
> immensely in teaching you to self-educate.
Yup.
Finally, use HTML 4.01 strict if possible, don't fall for the XHTML
trap. And learn CSS.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
| |
| Marc Bissonnette 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> altered the spacetime fabric by
disgorging news:Xns987CAEC02A11castleamber@130.133.1.4:
> Marc Bissonnette <dragnet\_@_/internalysis.com> wrote:
>
>
> ...
>
>
> As a side note personally I think one should avoid those 2 in most
> circumstances. It's better to ask yourself, why do I want to make this
> bold or italic? If it's to emphasize, use <em>...</em>, if it is to
> make a stronger point, use <strong>...</strong>.
>
> This is a very imporant but sadly often overlooked idea behind HTML,
> with the language elements you describe *what* a piece of text is, not
> how it should look. So a piece of text can be "a paragrah", or
> emphasized.
>
> With HTML you define what each piece of text *is*, and with CSS you
> define how it looks (sounds). So in CSS you can specify that the em
> element makes the text it contains looks bold and red.
Nah; I take a look at it from the server-wide POV (on ours: ~120
domains): Each instance of <I> is 3 bytes; each instance of <EM> is 4
bytes: <I> wins. Each instance of <B> is 3 bytes, each of <STRONG> is 7
bytes - <B> wins. Multiply those by the twenty thousand files or more
plus the infinite number of dynamically generated pages we serve and
then by, say, what, 2 instances per page on average ? We're already
paying over a thousand a month in bandwidth overage from our included
amount with the dedicated servers. From this perspective, even bytes per
page count. (Which is why I'm also so anti-wysiwyg)
>
> Notepad is IMNSHO in many cases a bad advice and I strongly suggest
> not to mention it.
I disagree with this, but then again, I'm old-school: When you really
know what you're doing, get the cool text editors. When you're starting
out, learn the basics of the language by relying on your brain and a
text-only-entry tool.
> There are plenty of general text editors out there that are free, and
> offer a lot of extras that assist in writing HTML like syntax
> highlighting, clip libraries, and project management. I myself prefer
> TextPad (not free).
>
>
> SFTP doesn't distinguish between binary and ascii afaik,
This should be a function of the application, not the protocol, IIRC;
winblows apps go by file extention: I could take foo.jpg, change it to
foo.txt and the FTP app will send it as ASCII
[snip]
--
Marc Bissonnette
Looking for a new ISP? http://www.canadianisp.com
Largest ISP comparison site across Canada.
| |
|
|
fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> I pay for a website....let me begin there. www.fowlplayseasoning.com
>
> It has been almost 3 months now....I have tried repeatedly to build the
> site with their 'site studio' program but can not get satisfactory
> results...just crap like you see there.
>
> I've tried to create pages on my computer and upload using the site
> studio and after about 12 hours (no joke) of watching the 'uploading
> files' window I give up. That has happened three times. The last time
> I finally went to bed and when I came back in the morning it was still
> loading.
>
> I joined this group thinking I might be able to pick up some clues on
> direction to take but maybe this is just over my head. At this point
> I'm not even trying to have a point of sale on the site...just
> information about the product and locations where it can be purchased.
> So now...
>
> I'm asking for help. If anyone wants to offer free advice I will be
> forever grateful. If not and anyone would like to offer his/her help
> for $$$, please give me an idea of what you would charge.
>
> Either way, thanks and I find the info here enlightening, if not
> amazing.
>
> RB
ROFL
RB, after reading the other responses, you thought you were Completely,
totally lost before?
;)
are you slapping up an info site, or wanting to learn new programming
languages, w3c accessability standards, doctype declarations and trying
to figure out just what goes between <html> and </html> ?
shit.
get this http://www.nvu.com/index.php
or this http://www.adobe.com/go/trydreamweaver
do the wysiwyg method and get the damn thing up ;)
later, when the time is right, you'll learn the backend to the frontend.
| |
| johngohde@naturalhealthperspective.com 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX wrote:
> I've tried to create pages on my computer and upload using the site
> studio and after about 12 hours (no joke) of watching the 'uploading
> files' window I give up. That has happened three times. The last time
> I finally went to bed and when I came back in the morning it was still
> loading.
Sounds like your primary problem might be uploading web pages to your
web site?
I personally like to use WS_FTP Pro which is a FreeWare Utility. While
it does suggest that you have to pay for it. That is actually NOT true.
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/...o_Download.html
But you will have to configure it with your user id, password, etc.
| |
|
| "fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX" <fowlplay.gourmet@XXXXXXXXXX> wrote:
>I pay for a website....let me begin there. www.fowlplayseasoning.com
>
>It has been almost 3 months now....I have tried repeatedly to build the
>site with their 'site studio' program but can not get satisfactory
>results...just crap like you see there.
>
>I've tried to create pages on my computer and upload using the site
>studio and after about 12 hours (no joke) of watching the 'uploading
>files' window I give up. That has happened three times. The last time
>I finally went to bed and when I came back in the morning it was still
>loading.
>
>I joined this group thinking I might be able to pick up some clues on
>direction to take but maybe this is just over my head. At this point
>I'm not even trying to have a point of sale on the site...just
>information about the product and locations where it can be purchased.
>So now...
>
>I'm asking for help. If anyone wants to offer free advice I will be
>forever grateful. If not and anyone would like to offer his/her help
>for $$$, please give me an idea of what you would charge.
>
>Either way, thanks and I find the info here enlightening, if not
>amazing.
>
>RB
If you're starting out from "computer literate" but don't have any
real software background, there are several paths you can take:
1. A wysiwyg front-end builder. Let the buyer beware. I have yet to
see one I'd carry home with me, much less pay for; otoh mileage varies
all over the map and lots of people swear by them. It sounds like
you've tried this route already though, without much satisfaction.
2. Start learning, and be prepared to continue learning for some
unknown number of years.
3. Find someone to do the job for you at a reasonable price. If you
want to get a decent site online in the forseeable future and have
tried and given up on using a front-end building tool, this is
probably your best alternative.
How do you find someone who is able to do the job but won't charge you
an arm and a leg for it? Good question. I'm on the wrong side of the
business to offer you any suggestions on that one, aside from asking
people you know who they'd recommend and then asking those folks for a
quote.
You might try asking friends who have high-school or college age kids,
the more recent crops of kids are quite computer savvy as a whole and
may be more interested in recognition than money, or may still be
living at home and think $500 is an absolute fortune. What you'll get
is open to some question.
Good luck whatever you choose.
--
Legacy browsers never heard of emerging standards.
(contact via http://www.ren-prod-inc.com/hug_soft)
| |
| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Marc Bissonnette <dragnet\_@_/internalysis.com> wrote:
> John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> altered the spacetime fabric by
>
> Nah; I take a look at it from the server-wide POV (on ours: ~120
> domains): Each instance of <I> is 3 bytes; each instance of <EM> is 4
> bytes: <I> wins.
Maybe time to examine mod_gzip? Also, do you strip off all non-significant
whitespace? Optimize each and every image to the max? Thought so, hence
bogus argument.
>
> I disagree with this,
Didn't expect anything else ;-)
> but then again, I'm old-school:
Old school means: I don't care shit about learning anything new. IMO your
loss.
> When you really
> know what you're doing, get the cool text editors. When you're starting
> out, learn the basics of the language by relying on your brain and a
> text-only-entry tool.
What!? No, dip switches and entering binary? Another bogus argument. HTML
is not about typing mistakes, it's about using it semantically correct.
Syntax highlighting, for example, helps with the former.
>
> This should be a function of the application, not the protocol, IIRC;
> winblows
If you don't like your OS, switch. Or grow up and stop calling it like a
12 year old with puberty issues.
> apps go by file extention: I could take foo.jpg, change it to
> foo.txt and the FTP app will send it as ASCII
That's the problem of the FTP application, since there is nothing stopping
the developer from using *exactly* the same thing Unix and co does: using
magic.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
| |
| Marc Bissonnette 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> altered the spacetime fabric by
disgorging news:Xns987C7F768748Dcastleamber@130.133.1.4:
> Marc Bissonnette <dragnet\_@_/internalysis.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Maybe time to examine mod_gzip? Also, do you strip off all
> non-significant whitespace? Optimize each and every image to the max?
> Thought so, hence bogus argument.
Actually, we've very recently started a program of optimizing all images
across the server and discussions are in place for optimizing the HTML,
as well. Getting into the habit of using smaller code from the get-go
reduces bandwidth usage. <I> achieves the same thing as <EM>, therefore
<I> is better. <B> achieves the same thing as <STRONG>, therefore <B> is
better.
>
> Didn't expect anything else ;-)
:)
>
> Old school means: I don't care shit about learning anything new. IMO
> your loss.
No. When I started learning carpentry as a child, my teacher told me I
must first master the hand tools before I could move on to the power
tools so that I would truly understand what it was that the power tools
were achieving. I have witnessed many a woodworker who has used nothing
but power tools and their work often sucks beside those who started with
hand tools (but now use power tools or better yet: Know when a hand tool
is best and when a power tool is best)
>
> What!? No, dip switches and entering binary? Another bogus argument.
> HTML is not about typing mistakes, it's about using it semantically
> correct. Syntax highlighting, for example, helps with the former.
Sure: And when you learn the language itself as a language and not as a
series of pretty colours and automatic indents, your need for correction
and back-tracking will be even less. You should have noted that I said
*start* with notepad, not *use notepad forever and a day* :)
>
> If you don't like your OS, switch. Or grow up and stop calling it like
> a 12 year old with puberty issues.
<Shrug> I use what is appropriate at the time. Winblows is my gaming OS,
since I am an avid gamer, but my profession is that of a perl/mysql
developer: Windows sucks hard vacuum for this with *nix blowing it out of
the water, each and every time. If the games I like to play were
available on Linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat, since 95% of my system
resources would be available for the app, instead of 40% of it being
consumed by the OS itself.
>
> That's the problem of the FTP application, since there is nothing
> stopping the developer from using *exactly* the same thing Unix and co
> does: using magic.
Unix does it by taking a look at the file content and using it as such;
Winblows does not, which is a safe assumption that the OP is using,
therefore the FTP app (such as WS_FTP) will make the switch based on the
extension.
--
Marc Bissonnette
Looking for a new ISP? http://www.canadianisp.com
Largest ISP comparison site across Canada.
| |
| John Bokma 2006-11-19, 7:58 pm |
| Marc Bissonnette <dragnet\_@_/internalysis.com> wrote:
> John Bokma <john@castleamber.com> altered the spacetime fabric by
>
> Actually, we've very recently started a program of optimizing all
> images across the server and discussions are in place for optimizing
> the HTML, as well.
use mod_gzip
> Getting into the habit of using smaller code from
> the get-go reduces bandwidth usage. <I> achieves the same thing as
> <EM>, therefore <I> is better. <B> achieves the same thing as
> <STRONG>, therefore <B> is better.
Sounds extremely silly to me, but it's your server.
> No. When I started learning carpentry as a child, my teacher told me I
> must first master the hand tools before I could move on to the power
> tools so that I would truly understand what it was that the power
> tools were achieving.
As often is the case when people try to illustrate something with an
analogy, it fails. If you can't explain by using the situation at hand,
don't fall back to silly analogies.
I am sure your teacher didn't say that you first had to dig up the
metals and create your own tools from scratch to understand how those
tools work and are made as they are? As you see, there is a line that
has to be drawn somewhere.
>
> <Shrug> I use what is appropriate at the time. Winblows is my gaming
> OS, since I am an avid gamer, but my profession is that of a
> perl/mysql developer: Windows sucks hard vacuum for this with *nix
> blowing it out of the water, each and every time. If the games I like
> to play were available on Linux, I'd switch in a heartbeat, since 95%
> of my system resources would be available for the app, instead of 40%
> of it being consumed by the OS itself.
So either live with it or fix it. Naming it like a 12 yo kid doesn't
change a thing. Maybe some fanboys love it though.
>
> Unix does it by taking a look at the file content and using it as
> such; Winblows does not, which is a safe assumption that the OP is
> using, therefore the FTP app (such as WS_FTP) will make the switch
> based on the extension.
*sigh* work on your reading skills. It has nothing to do on how Windows
handles things. Any FTP application can decide to handle files based on
the same method Unix uses, by magic, instead of extension.
--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:
--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html
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