New here, looking for some website help

Hey guys,
I've just joined up, I'm 15 years old, in Year 12, and studying for my software development course in IT.

I have been in computers for many years. I usually only work with programming, but have decided website building might be interesting I have built my first website... It was really a just a test website, I made, with no software, and HTML experience. I am not able to post a link yet for 7 days, and 10 posts later.

When you see my website, you will see it is on my woodturning, one of my other hobbies. I am looking at making a second website, on my turning.

I have obtained quite a lot of software, since my first site.

I have

1. Macromedia Studio 8.0
2. Macromedia 8.0
3. Dreamweaver
4. Fireworks MX 8.0
5. Macromedia Freehand 10.0
6. Macromedia Flash MX 8.0
7. Coldfusion MX 7.0 Developer edition
8. Contribute 3.0

I think, this is all the software I would need, for building a pretty snazzy website. Does anybody have any other software titles, I should obtain?

Now, saying all that, I have very little experience in website design, coding etc: I have the software, and not really the knowledge. Does anybody have any help? What should I do first? Any other software I should get? What tutorials should I try doing? etc etc:

Let us know, of any ideas/suggestions,

Joash

 

I would say to get a DB management tool if you will be buidling db based sites.

 

Just a quick update, you can see my website, in my profile section...

Thanks "cc"

 

NP JB15000, Just a quick reminder... If you have a popup, people will leave the site instantly! I realize that FF and IE will block the majority of popups, but as personal experience, I just saw their was a popup, FF blocked it, but I instantly left the site.

 

I would try to learn XHTML and CSS first because they are the foundations and so you can fine tune the code your editors produce, produce your own websites from scratch, and edit templates etc, then learn some basic PHP and mysql. This list of tutorials recently reached the front page of Digg.com: Tutorials Round Up.

 

I know, it was a free temporary website, to expirement.....
my new one, won't have any

 

Thanks, does anyone know some good macromedia tutorials?

 

http://www.flashkit.com has good tuts, my favorite is http://www.kirupa.com though

 

I personally try to stay away from Dreamweaver and I stick with the old lightweight program: Macromedia Homesite! . (Homesite is not supported anymore though).

I agree with Aundril, learn XHTML/CSS then move onto PHP/MySQL.

 

I prefer Programmer's NotePad, its not WYSIWYG or whatever, but I prefer it because I am learning to CODE not just click around dreamweaver (like I used to do).

Just my opinion though.

 

I've seen a few people say Programmers NotePad is good, I may have to take a look at it sometime...

 

Hello, JB_1500.
I suggest you to visit some of these sites to get the knowledge you are missing.

http://www.draac.com
http://webmonkey.com
http://www.htmlhelp.com
http://www.w3schools.com
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
http://www.tips-tricks.com/
http://www.tizag.com

Best regards.

 

One software you will need for sure is Photoshop. This in my opinion is the core to most creative projects. Even in the video editing world, people use Photoshop, it's that powerful. I would learn Photoshop first before anything else if design is what you're after. If you visit sites like templatemonster(dot)com, most if not all of those designs are made with PS.

Good luck

 

One more thing, i just check your site and noticed that you have the visitor counter. Take that out, that has amatuer written all over it. The in thing now is web 2.0, choose your color carefully. Do a search for web 2.0 colors on google and read up on it. If you notice all the big corporations, they are mostly using web 2.0 colors.

 

Yep, most hosts now (I'm not sure about free hosts?) record stats on your visitors by default that you can view without displaying a counter on your site.

Macromedia Fireworks can open .PSD files (though it will have to save in a different format like png), and I heard its a powerful program great for web design, so its not necessary to buy Photoshop (though Photoshop is great and very powerful, and there are a lot of Photoshop tutorials). If you are strongly interested in graphic design, Photoshop is a good investment.

People use Photoshop in the Video Editing world? What for? Also, what programs do you guys like for editing videos? I want to post a few Youtube vids.

 

Photoshop is the center of the universe and i am not kidding either. How does PS fit in with the video editing world? You can export your movie clip to PS and basically do what ever you like there and import it back to your editing program. Say for example you want to take that clock in the background out of your clip or make an animation of a light sabor etc etc. You can do it in PS too. It's very powerful.

I use Sony Vegas Video for editing. Very good and simple program to edit with. IF all you are doing is YouTube style videos with basic cuts and fades, just use any basic editing program is fine.

 

Thanks guys for all the help, links, and info...

My first website, was my first, it took me 6 hours toi make...as you can tell

I have Photoshop CS29.0, have used it quite a bit, and know the basics of it.....I'll check out some of the tutorials.

Thanks again,
Joash