Advice on beginner building a website

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Hello all, I am switching over and picking up my macbook pro this weekend! Apple is offering a great deal for students where you can get the adobe cs3 web premium for $300. I was thinking of getting this since i am looking at starting a website. I am starting to learn html and css now and it doesn't look that hard, but there is alot of stuff to learn and i'm sure i will struggle mightily with it. The adobe cs3 web premium comes with dreamweaver which is what i figured i would use to do my site, is that a good program for beginners or will i be in way over my head? Just looking for any advice to help me out, thanks alot.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
15" Macbook Pro, 2.16gz, 2gb RAM || 20" iMac, 2.4gz, 2gb RAM
Depends on which type of beginner. If you want a program to pretty much code the website for you, then dreamweaver is great. But if your the type of beginner that actually wants to know whats going on with the code, and how it all works, id recommend TextMate from Macromates.com.

Saying that, I use Dreamweaver, and always have done, but I know how to fix the code if and when Dreamwevaer breaks it.

WYSIWYG is not always true with this application. Sometimes it interprets the website different to a browser.
 
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I do want to learn the code and do it that way, but i'm kinda weary of how difficult it will be to produce a good looking website with my lack of knowledge. I have the basics down pretty good but i know it can get very complicated. I would like something that i could write code for, but could help me if i have trouble with something.
 
T

todd51

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Learn, learn, and learn. I pick up books and read tutorials on the web. You could also visit popular Web Design Blogs that give you tips and such for creating designs or editing code.

Dreamweaver is okay for a beginner, especially if you plan on using the built-in FTP. Of course when I use Dreamweaver, I am only in the "code" view. I will also use TextMate, that is a great application to try out if you feel like you'll be tempted by using the "design" view.

Once you realize that the "design" view is 75% of the time nothing that what appears in the browser, you'll stay away from it.
 
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Quick question: I'm learning some more about encoding, what character encoding should i use? I'm reading about a program called BBEdit that encodes in UTF-8, is there an advantage to coding with that program or could i use the default encoding for a mac?? Thanks.
 
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I bought HTML, XHTML, and CSS Visual Quickstart Guide this weekend and finished it, is there another book out there that may help me? I thought this book was very good and eased me into things. I am also thinking about getting a book on dreamweaver to compliment the basic coding knowledge that i have, any recommendations there? Thanks.
 
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2.0GHz Aluminium MacBook
Avoid specialising in dreamweaver...spend your time reading about XHTML & CSS instead. I have not used dreamweaver in years but I'm fairly confident i can just pick it up and make a website using it because I just write the code straight into the text editor on any web dev program.
 
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Can anyone suggest a good book with pictures to help instruct? The visual quickstart guide was good at that but it's hard to tell if the other books do since i don't live near a bookstore.
 

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