Website Design

[Dru]

A friend and I want to manage a couple of different websites. He is a professional fisherman and I will be videoing my tournaments this year. We want to be able to post videos, pictures, blogs and manage the content.

I know nothing about this. What is the best software for someone just getting started in this arena?

[Throwin Darts]

i had no experience with building a site but my mac made it a breeze with the iWeb program. I now have 4 sites. I would recommend picking up a Mac and you will be good to go.

you can check out my side in my avatar.

[Loneaggie]

You could do it all fairly simply with WordPress if you get it configured correctly. Other options would be Joomla or Core Expression Engine. WordPress is the simplest solution though. Joomla and EEngine can be daunting. If you are looking for professional services, I'm a site sponsor, and offer website development services. If you just need some advice, ask away here and I'll answer anything I know the answer to.

[Dru]

Thanks Matt, I will. Does Joomla and/or Eengine require CSS Codes?

[Loneaggie]

Thanks Matt, I will. Does Joomla and/or Eengine require CSS Codes?

CSS (cascading style sheet) is a method of applying visual styles to web pages. Joomla, Eengine, and Drupal are all content management frameworks built on PHP/MySQL.

A web page starts its life as a HTML or XHTML document. That document tells your browser things like what the page title is, what the headings are, how big and where the images are in relation to the document etc. That HTML document may include or reference a set of CSS rules. The CSS rules tell your browser how the specific pieces of the HTML page are supposed to look. So CSS says level 1 headings are 18 pixes tall and in a bold font. You can alter just about everything about a HTML element using CSS. The content management systems are like little software programs that live on your webserver. So instead of you maintaining links to say 200 blog posts, it stores all those in a database and pulls them out depending on how you ask it to. The three I mentioned are all written in a language called PHP (pre-hypertext processor).

Depending on your content, iWeb might be sufficient, your next choice would be WordPress, after that you start getting into systems that take some knowledge to get set up and configured.

[Dru]

My site will mainly be videos I produce and those submitted from viewers. I'm thinking of using a services like QIK. There will be a monthly contest so I'll need to be able to handle comments and voting. I will also need to run banners from my sponsors. Like I said, it is not real intensive but I want to manage it myself.

I appreciate the feedback and I'm sure I will have many more ?'s.

[Loneaggie]

My site will mainly be videos I produce and those submitted from viewers. I'm thinking of using a services like QIK. There will be a monthly contest so I'll need to be able to handle comments and voting. I will also need to run banners from my sponsors. Like I said, it is not real intensive but I want to manage it myself.

I appreciate the feedback and I'm sure I will have many more ?'s.

From what you're describing IMO you definitely want a content management system, specifically a web 2.0 portal management system. I say this because what you are describing is managing a community of contributors plus managing content. That combination is pretty much outside the realm of something you can comfortably and easily do with just HTML and something like iWeb. WordPress can do it, and is the most user friendly of the options I listed. If this is a commercial endeavor I'd encourage the use of Joomla.

[BSOB]

x2 for wordpress