starting a website

Hi,

Say you go to a site like godaddy.com and register the domain example.com.
How do you make modifications to the homepage?

I learned (and am still learning) how to do some basic things with HTML like edit an "index.html." But how do you access, say, an index.html file for example.com, when example.com is being hosted remotely? Do you have to call GoDaddy and ask them if you can edit index.html?

Haha, please don't laugh too hard. I'm very green on this and would just like to know the first steps in building a website.

Um... you upload your files to the server ... It's just an FTP server (probably running Apache), and all you do is access the server via username/password. And you literally drag your files into the server. Files with the same name will be overwritten, so you make changes to the index.html offline, then drag it into the server and overwrite the existing one.

Once you get the server they'll probably configure it for you, such as, set your homepage, etc..

index.html is usually the default. If you'd like another file to be the default, just put a redirect in within the head. I do it with my site as "mainindex.shtml" is my main page - I just have the "index.html" have a simple link in it with a redirection notice (in case the browser doesn't redirect, an alternative is provided), and after a few seconds, the page redirects.

Also, make sure that you have the DNS nameservers set properly. It'll take a few hours for it to take effect, but once it does, feel free to upload whatever files you need.

As a side note, you can test HTML without even needing a website - just have the files stored on your own hard drive and link to them using the file:// protocol instead of the http:// protocol. That is "file://C:\My Documents\example.html", then just open the file in your browser. Images and styles are all the same way.

How I edit my website, of which I'll be doing shortly, is use Wordpad to type up everything as needed offline, then to upload the updated contents and any new files/images, I just use WS_FTP LE (which is very buggy) to upload everything where it needs to go. I use a folder called "images" in the root that contains all the images - GIF, JPG, and PNG images. Another folder, "temporary", is primarily used for putting images and things for use in forums and vaguely relate to my website. "files" is for general files (usually as ZIP files). The related webpages themselves are sorted by category and subcategory.

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As a side note, you can test HTML without even needing a website - just have the files stored on your own hard drive and link to them using the file:// protocol instead of the http:// protocol. That is "file://C:\My Documents\example.html", then just open the file in your browser. Images and styles are all the same way.

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You can miss several bug this way - due to hard-coded links that are by mistake set here or there...

It is not too hard to setup the IIS server supplied with XP and test the files in the "real" environment

For learning purposes, doing it that way is better than, say, using some webhost not to mention being much faster. When you, for example, learn how to add a table and want to try it out, links to external files, whether on your own hard drive or remotely on your webhost, aren't necessary. Still, links can be used in this way for learning purposes. For having it on a website, however, using the file:// protocol is highly not recommended.

Search Wampserver from google - that's everything you need for a web server. It includes Apache, PHP and MySQL.

Not sure he would want to run a server. Nor would he want PHP or SQL.

He/she stated in the the first message that he/she just learned some basic HTML (probably bold, italic, the general design and rules, and other simple tags). PHP would likely be beyond the user's knowledge at the moment.

Thanks for your help so far, but I'm still having trouble understanding.

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He/she stated in the the first message that he/she just learned some basic HTML (probably bold, italic, the general design and rules, and other simple tags). PHP would likely be beyond the user's knowledge at the moment.

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Yeah. I barely know what `<br>' and `<p>' are.

Regarding the website: So after I've created, tested, and am satisfied with my `index.html' file, I use an FTP utility to transfer the file to godaddy (or whoever is hosting the website)? Do I need to get a username and password from the web hosting service to do this?
So say the nameserver is NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN. Do I do ftp NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN -> username/password -> put index.html?


Haha, yeah. I'm really lost. But any additional help would be really...let's see...helpful!

Okay here we go:

With a basic account, godaddy.com (as far as I know) doesn't host any files, but only gives you your namespace. That means that godaddy.com will allow to register www.examplesite.com with them, but you can't actually store any files on their servers with a basic account (as far as I know, please correct me if I am wrong).

When you have your account at godaddy.com, and you have registered a namespace, you can then login to your account there. When you are logged in, it will bring up a page with many options about how you want to configure your .com website, including what server will be hosting/storing your files. So you want to set that option correctly to point to the server that is storing your index.html file.

Next...you need some server to store your files. If I am correct, a more premium package at godaddy.com will allow you to store your files on their server, but once again, I am not completely sure.

There are many other ways to get a file server, however. There are many free hosts out there who will store your files. You just have to find one. They all vary when it comes to how good they actually are, and they might asks for certain stipulations.

Another option, if you are at a university, is to see if your university allows you some space on their servers. For example, at my university of BYU, every student is allowed 20 MB of space on the servers. As a Computer Science student, we are given an extra 300 MB of space on the CS servers. I normally use the CS servers at my school as my web host and file host.

Whatever way you do it, you need to find a server who will store your files, and then tell godaddy.com to point to that server in your godaddy.com account.

If you only want to experiment with some basic HTML stuff, write me a Private Message and i'll give you a free subdomain with limited webspace on my domain progressive-coding.com

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Whatever way you do it, you need to find a server who will store your files, and then tell godaddy.com to point to that server in your godaddy.com account.

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Okay, this makes more sense. I have a yahoo briefcase account (example username: john_doe) that gives you 30 MB of free file storage (on 66.218.75.186). So do I say

register examplesite.com and point to account john_doe on nameserver 66.218.75.186 ?

Just go with 1and1 hosting. Domain and hosting in one package. If you want to get a website, do it right, not half-ass.

30Mb is for losers! :D

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ust go with 1and1 hosting. Domain and hosting in one package. If you want to get a website, do it right, not half-ass.

30Mb is for losers!

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Some people don't have large files downloadable from their website. In his case, if he is just playing around with HTML, 30 MB is more than enough.

I am not sure about yahoo briefcase, because I have never used it, so I can't tell you. Maybe someone else on here has experience with that, and can tell you.

Honestly, though, if I were you, unless you have good reason to register a domain name, I would just skip it and make a website somewhere else. If you really want your own .com, then go for it, but for many personal sites it is not completely necessary.

My site is hosted off of the BYU CS servers, and I decided to just keep the link directed to students.cs.byu.edu/~dpru/ instead of making a .com domain for it. It all depends on your needs really.

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Originally Posted by zacs7

Not sure he would want to run a server. Nor would he want PHP or SQL.

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Without PHP and SQL the only thing you can do is a lousy homepage...

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Originally Posted by DavidP

Some people don't have large files downloadable from their website. In his case, if he is just playing around with HTML, 30 MB is more than enough.

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Yup. My browser based game took less than 1Mb and my news portal took even less.

I have had a decent amount of experience with this sorta thing. ha

GoDaddy.com is the way to go IMHO and it's got a nice interface and all for uploading. Plus you can get MySQL stuff, as well as download something like SmartFTP for uploading (free).


Good luck!

Just a possible warning about godaddy though: nodaddy. I have no experience using godaddy, so I definitely do not have any experience with godaddy suspending domain name registrations unfairly.

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Without PHP and SQL the only thing you can do is a lousy homepage...

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There are alternatives to PHP (and to SQL too, I suppose), and a "homepage" need not be "lousy" if it has good content within a good layout.

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Originally Posted by maxorator

Without PHP and SQL the only thing you can do is a lousy homepage...

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That's quite a statement and I'll challenge you on that right off the bat. I wonder what a server-side scripting language and information storage system could offer that makes a "good" homepage. They have absolutely NO influence on the content, the design, the usability, accessibility and ease of use (I could go on and on about this) and while it is true that PHP offers very advanced processing methods to dynamically create markup, it still only generates static websites.

It will probably be a little more complicated to edit the html files manually each time and you can't do "advanced" things such as news on several pages (without it being a pain in the butt) but I am pretty sure that you can do VERY good websites without the use of any server-side scripting language. The content and design is still more important than the technical features of your site.

Plus since this is a C/C++ forum, we *should* recommend C CGI to him ;)

And using PHP in small simple sites could be considered more of a problem than a benifit.

http://www.ixwebhosting.com
No comments.

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Originally Posted by KONI

That's quite a statement and I'll challenge you on that right off the bat. I wonder what a server-side scripting language and information storage system could offer that makes a "good" homepage. They have absolutely NO influence on the content, the design, the usability, accessibility and ease of use (I could go on and on about this) and while it is true that PHP offers very advanced processing methods to dynamically create markup, it still only generates static websites.

It will probably be a little more complicated to edit the html files manually each time and you can't do "advanced" things such as news on several pages (without it being a pain in the butt) but I am pretty sure that you can do VERY good websites without the use of any server-side scripting language. The content and design is still more important than the technical features of your site.

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It doesn't affect the design nor the content, but soon he'll want to make a dynamic site and then he'd need to switch hostings. That's why it is good to take a normal hosting right away.

Let's make that "without PHP" to "without server-side scripting languages".

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It doesn't affect the design nor the content, but soon he'll want to make a dynamic site and then he'd need to switch hostings. That's why it is good to take a normal hosting right away.

Let's make that "without PHP" to "without server-side scripting languages".

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How do you know that? Seriously. CGI only benefits a web site after their site has both an audience and content, because then your CGI experiments have a purpose; CGI can improve the user experience, among other uses. You shouldn't just throw CGI on every website because it provides different benefits depending on the content. And even then, it's still a decision to be made.

Limited webhosting is certainly a valid option, slippy. It'll be a more wise expense to make when paid-hosting fits your needs, so I hope you don't waste your money.

Did you ask your ISP if they offered you web hosting with your subscription? Since you paid for it anyway, you might as well use that at first.

vart does have a point though: a local web server could facilitate testing of webpages over HTTP without having to upload to a remote server until you are satisfied.

I suggest using Apache for a webserver, then installing PHP and say MySQL (or enable PDO support and use SQLite) separately at some later point when you actually want to develop and test using such technology.

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Originally Posted by laserlight

I suggest using Apache for a webserver, then installing PHP and say MySQL (or enable PDO support and use SQLite) separately at some later point when you actually want to develop and test using such technology.

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Wampserver just includes the latest Apache, PHP and MySQL and a tray icon which you can use to start, stop, restart all of these services together, enable modules or plugins and much more. Less trouble, no loss in performance.

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Wampserver just includes the latest Apache, PHP and MySQL and a tray icon which you can use to start, stop, restart all of these services together, enable modules or plugins and much more. Less trouble, no loss in performance.

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On the other hand, one now relies on the maintainer of such a third party package to keep updated, and learns nothing about how to configure them in the absence of such combined packages.

I don't think he wants to host his own website!?

But if he did, Installing PHP & SQL would be wise, just incase you wanted mess around with stuff or install some sort of 3rd party script.

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I don't think he wants to host his own website!?

But if he did, Installing PHP & SQL would be wise, just incase you wanted mess around with stuff or install some sort of 3rd party script.

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Ok, I'm getting the idea now!

I found a registrar, but they want resource records for a

"zone file."

A what????

In any case, they said you need to specify a record to bind your nameserver to the web address. So I surfed the web and found something like

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                IN            NS            dns1.example.com
dns1        IN        A        NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN

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NNN.NNN.NNN.NNN would be the IP address of yahoo briefcase?

Now things are getting confusing again!

When you sign up for webhosting, you are given the nameserver information. If you host using a different company than the domain name registrar, you'll need to log in to your domain name registrar, find the area that allows you to set the nameserver, then use some copy paste for inserting the data as needed. It'll take a few hours to even 3 days for this change to propagate through the internet. Until then, you can only use a direct IP address to access your website and transfer files.