Personal Website

[Onken]

I need a site sorted this weekend and its been maybe ten years since I touched Dreamweaver. I had SquareSpace in mind as a simple solution and choose a theme I liked (Flatiron) but the customisation options and being able to change the most simple elements is really confusing. I'm having second thoughts with going with them now.

All I wanted is a basic layout like this this example, nice grid of thumbnails that take you to my videos, blog, etc. It shows you his website but then theres no instructions how he's achieved his custom look. Took a peek opening the page source in Chrome to see if theres anyway to steal the custom CSS but haven't got a clue what I'm looking at.

What are some alternative paid hosts and please don't say Wix.

[Queneau]

I would save the page as and open in Dreamweaver or whatever it is now. Is that legal? Don't listen to me.

[surreal]

Easiest is probably Wordpress now, although not perfect by any stretch most hosts are very cheap and have a one-click setup, you have a huge choice of templates and most things are straightforward to work out if you have even a passing knowledge of "internet stuff"

[mobias]

Definitely go Wordpress. I'm fairly clueless when it comes to website creation, Dreamweaver is way beyond my ability, but I managed to get a decent looking photography website built in about a week with Wordpress. There's loads of photography based templates that are either free or available for a fee. Photocrati is the one I used. Costs a bit but I managed to grab a free copy of it somewhere online http://www.photocrati.com

[Onken]

I stuck it out with SquareSpace and found a better template as a starting point. They're not the cheapest at $16 a month for their professional package (unlimited pages, storage, bandwidth) but I'm more confident with how it all operates now. I have used Wordpress extensively through Uni, creating free blogs for almost every project was mandatory but felt too familiar with most of their themes at this stage. I wanted my mine to be slightly different rather than going with the industry leader.

It's a tough call whether to follow a lot the latest trends or stay clear of them. One trend that most of my competition is quickly adopting is the big scrolling single page. I think Apple were one of the first I remember seeing and it probably impresses clients as looking quite fresh to them. I don't think its always appropriately implemented for the product or service they're selling especially when its someone portfolio in my case. I'm going leave off having "hero" intro page off for now until I know what best to place there.

Next piece of business is a domain. A .tv for ten years is £350 or a .uk is £60.

[biggytitbo]

Github offer free hosting for websites if you use git - https://pages.github.com/


I run my website off it and it works really well.

[VegaLA]

Wix...

http://www.wix.com/

...seem to be advertising heavy on TV here.