Hello all I am confident in the magic I do and it is a bit mixed really I mean there is a bit of card , coin magic there is pk magic and there is a touch of cold reading in there so I'm kind of a jack of all trades.
BUT I don't have a website and I feel confident on making one but theres is only one problem , I don't KNOW HOW! please can somebody show me the softwear I need and the ins and outs or any tips will do.

Thanks.

Gareth

MSWORD has an html editor that you can use to put up a basic page. It also has a help feature to guide you thru.
You will need...
webspace - check with your provider, look at the help pages to get the details of your website address and other details.
HTML editor - you can use word or get a dedicated package.
FTP - you need a FTP program to upload files to your webspace.

So you would make a web page in word and upload it with the FTP program to your webspace.

There are programs that will take care of all of the angles but expect to do some study to get to grips with them.

There's Front Page, Dreamweaver, (complex) and then check out templates. You can purchase a templates then make adjustements. In a search engine type in web page template and see if there is one you like.

Of course you need to add your pictures and text.

If you want to learn, look at pages you like the right click and view the source code. Learn from others.

Avoid flash and java script for now. It isn't really necessary.

Also you should know what it is you want you web page to do before you design or post it. If it is going to sell you then, keep it focused on that. The more focused the better.

If it is an ego page then anything goes because people won't stay long. Ask you're self "Why does the viewer want to look on my web page?" Be honest and blanently frank with yourself on that question.

By the way, I learned by reading others code and reading an HTML book to understand what they did. I Also use Homesite Editor. (Code from a basic template.)

I'm pretty old-fashioned about it and don't use an authoring program. I use a fantastic HTML editor, BBEdit, only available for the Mac. Get a book on HTML (the O'Reilly one is good). Look at the source code for pages that you like, as Dennis suggests. Also, content is the important thing, flashy stuff like animation and weird menu icons are tedious.

HTML is pretty simple. If you need proof, look at all the websites put up by the cognitively challenged.

Yours,

Paul

Gareth, go to your nearest PC World in Rotherham and look for SERIF WEBPLUS 8 Design Suite.

No HTML needed, no FTP needed. You can either make your own page yourself or use a template. You can also feed in all the search information and search words you'll ever need. When your site is made and online then get yourself listed in the Google Arts and Entertainment Directory.

Honestly, this is a really good one!

Tony in Cheshire.

Thank you Cheshire Cat. I'll try that out.

Gareth

Meh, I use Notepad for all my web design needs.

I learned HTML in the 9th grade and have never forgotten it. If you are familiar with Adobe, check out Golive. Brilliant piece of work, it is, though it is a bit complex, not to mention expensive. But, if you are just looking for a personal web site with nothin gtoo complex, you can do a lot with photoshop and HTML.

don't forget.... image maps are your best friend if you are working with photoshop



wow, I'm waaaaay to geeky for my own good.

Although I know HTML, I still prefer to work in a program where you can see what's happening. Why? Not because I can't imagine what the page will look like, but because often I see websites with misplaced text or other glitches, and I know that it's because he used HTML.

If you know HTML, just use a program like Dreamweaver, and fix the tags as you're working. It's much easier, and in the end, the site looks better because you can see what it looks like, and you don't have to worry about forgetting a backslash or closing the quotation marks.

Shane Wiker

Everyone "uses" html unless its a flash or other type of site...

Misplaced text is not the fault of the program creating the site, it is the fault of whoever wrote it...

Whether you write it in FrontPage or notepad, when you check the site with different browsers and screen resolutions(which you should do), you should notice and fix the problem.... this applies to notepad or whatever else.


I also disagree with using Dreamweaver and then using notepad. That can be fine for extremely rough pages that you just want to get a feel for, but nearly all the "drag and click" creators like Frontpage and Dreamweaver end up with either tons of useless or pointless code, or have things formatted in such a way that it is a mess to try and edit later.

Things like using 25 lines of code and tags to do what 1 line and a single tag would have done...


Anyway, learn HTML and site design and use whatever you wish.

If your web page turns out bad or good, it is your fault, not whether you used notepad or Dreamweaver or whatever...



I think it is wrong to infer that all misplaced text or glitches is the result of hand-creating the web page via notepad.

I know that many pages I've created work well in multiple browsers with different screen sizes, and yet very similar pages created in FrontPage will only work in IE at a certain resolution, and any change will SEVERLY mess the page up, and this is for the exact same content and features and design as the notepad one.

Personally, I've never had any major problems or long-standing glitches, because I use notepad, understand what my code does and how it interacts with browsers, and can manually fix things when the programs mess up.... Something you should learn before jumping in whole hog with a WYSIWYG.


This is the same as with magic, and everything else in life.... You can't just take the easy way out; you have to put in the work to get there before you will succeed.

This is the reason a gimmick might look like a miracle in the hands of a pro and crap in an amateur, not because of the effect but because of all the work the pro did before obtaining and using the gimmick.


Same thing with Editors like FrontPage. You should learn to make sites in notepad and then move up if you want to do things faster or whatever, but going right there without understanding the basics leads to Un-navigatable and confusing websites, un-compatible websites and obscenely large html files which should have been extremely tiny.

Gareth, can I also direct you to the services of BRAVENET in Canada. http://www.bravenet.com

You can get yourself a free website with loads of extras to start with, and then start paying them a very small and reasonable amount for hosting and get a proper domain name off them to put in your ads. They will also drop the ads and broaden the bandwidth when you subscribe to them. They are a VERY well established company and I've nothing but praise for them. I use them for a Forum Board myself as my website is hosted by NTT/VERIO.
Tony.

I like front page.
Matt

Daegs,

Is your post directed toward me? If so, it seems like you've taken everything I said, and changed it around to sound different.

As I said before, I know HTML, and could easily create an entire website with it. It’s not because I’m lazy, or because I can’t type fast enough (70 WPM).

I said that I choose not to and prefer to work in What You See Is What You Get editors like Dreamweaver. I don't know if you have Dreamweaver or not, but I do agree that editors like FrontPage are substandard.

There are several parts of my website that I had to add in HTML because Dreamweaver couldn't fix a problem for me, but I don't feel that just because I use a WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver means that I'm taking the easy way out. Oh, and by the way. Dreamweaver also has an HTML editor built in, so why did you think I used Notepad?

Shane Wiker

Shane,

Maybe I'm missing something, but it's easy to see what your page is going to look like when using a text editor like BBEdit. Create the beginnings of your HTML page and save it. Open a browser window and use the "Open File" or similar command to display the page that you are working on. Work on the page some more, click Save, then hit the refresh button on your browser window. This isn't hard. I have created literally hundreds of pages this way.

You can save your nascent page in a folder, throw another folder called "images" in the folder for your graphics, no problem. When you are done you upload the whole thing.

Yours,

Paul

Frontpage is always a good start in learning about webdesign and HTML. The interface is pretty easy, and it has templates too to just start working on a page.