Some tips to get started with a website ??

Guys, I've been reading this forum for some days now. Now i want to get started . I want some expert opinions. This is what i hv decided go with.

1)Hosting : godaddy. (is it good?)
2)Domain name registration: godaddy
3)Technologies: PHP,MYSQL
4)Tool : Dreamwear. (Hows yahoo site builder?)
5)CMS: There are too many . I am conufused. I hv decided to go with pligg.com. Is it good? Any other option? Like joomla etc?

Thanks

 

Well you are off to a good start, are you planning on creating a blog/personal website/business site/community. If you are planning on opening a community i suggest you check out Kenetix CMS since its based for community portal sites.
Click here:

Do contact me if you need any further help and good luck to you, im sure you can learn lots from DP.

 

i wouldnt use pligg just yet especially if you are new

joomla is a good CMS to start with

i probably wouldn't host or get my domain name with godaddy

i like hostgator for hosting

you can get a domain name anywhere

but i know with go daddy that if you somehow to forget to renew your domain the stick the domain in some sort o fhold and you have to pay some money to get it out....

 

I agree. Avoid most of these pitfalls (or death traps, if you will).

The first thing you're going to want is a domain name. Misk (formerly Registersite) is very good (I've been using them for four years now). You can get domain names for less, but you know the old saying "you get what you pay for" .

Next you're going to need a hosting account that has PHP and MySQL. Since you're just starting out, I'd avoid getting a reseller account. However, you are going to want an account that lets you add on extra domain names (so you don't have to pay through the nose with several accounts or go with a reseller account before you feel you're ready). Hostgator's $10/month plan is very good for this, and is great for personal site hosting.

Once you get those set up, you'll want to look at what tools support the technologies you're going to be using. For the server-side, you already have that covered with your hosting package (if they allow FTP, phpMyAdmin, PHP, MySQL and others - if you go with HostGator, you'll be fine, since they cover those and a lot more). So it's the client (user) end you're going to want to focus on next. If you're on a Windows computer (and chances are very good you are), you probably have Internet Explorer as your primary browser. Keep it. But also get your hands on a copy of Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Opera as well. You'll want to pay attention toKonqueror (for Linux computers) and Safari (for Macintosh computers) as well, but you won't be able to test directly on these systems unless you emulate them on your Windows computer via an emulator like Microsoft VirtualPC, VMWare or Parallels Workstation (for Windows I prefer M$ VPC). Be warned, though, that (if I'm right, someone please kindly correct me if I'm wrong - and yes, I know about that piece of bloatware called PearPC) if you want to emulate the Mac OS X operating system, your motherboard must support it, so it's best to use a free site like Browser Shots or Total Validator to test your work in browsers you cannot get your hands on (and frankly, the big ones on the desktop computer are Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Konqueror, Netcape, Opera and Safari).

Now that you have your browsers and a couple sites to check in browsers that you can't use directly, you're going to want to get a program that can let you work with the code. Many people recommend a WISIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor like Dreamweaver, but I don't like it. Even those who say "just use it for the code view" probably aren't realizing that you're wasting $600 on something you can get for free. Try looking at EditPad Lite (it's free for non-commercial use) instead. You'll also want to learn some HTML and CSS so you can understand what the HTML and CSS do, and how they interact with one another. For this I recommend going to your local library and checking out (even if they have to borrow them from another library) Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way with HTML and CSS by Ian Lloyd (SitePoint) and Designing With Web Standards, 2nd Edition by Jeffrey Zeldman.

If you want to use a content management system, go with WordPress. While the HTML code is clean, it does have a bit of a PHP curve (not much though) with its templating system, but if you have any questions, there is a large community of friendly developers who are more than happy to help you out. There's also a very large number of free themes you can use (and abuse) while learning the ins and outs of the system, not to mention the plugins and widgets you can use to extend the script.

Yes, it's primarily a blog, but its greatest (open) secret is that it's a content management system with blogging in mind. If you need a more traditional CMS, then a few tweaks here and there will let you turn WordPress into one (there are plenty of tutorials available online, look for the ones that center on WordPress 2.x - as of the time of this writing - for the latest and most current information on how to do so).