newbie

Hi all, please help me. I just registered my own domain name, I am simply trying to start up a family website, I am military and its hard to keep the family in touch and informed with all thats going on, so i decided to start a family web page. I purchased my own domain name. How do i find a web server, or host or whatever it's called? I am looking for something cheap, I only need a few pages of pics and paragraphs, so nothing too big. But it seems like there are not a whole lot of mac friendly hosts out there. Anyone have any suggestions? Like I said I already have the domain name and the plan in my head, now I just need a way to get the site on the net, lol.

Depending on wheter you want advertisements to show up on your page or not, you can find free webhosting sites out there that can take your domain you purchased. Just google "free webhosting" and there will be plenty to choose from. The downfall to that is advertising is put up on your web site on every page. To upload your stuff to these sites, they usually offer their own interface instead of using FTP.

If you dont mind paying for your website, I would suggest using http://www.brinkster.com or http://www.ixwebhosting.com . They give you good options and tools for little money. My own site is hosted on brinkter's and I have another website I created under ixwebhosting. The smallest plan is about $4.95 a month on both and give you a good chunk of space. If you go this route, you can use FTP to upload your web pages. Fetch or Cyberduck are good free FTP programs for mac found at http://www.versiontracker.com .

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I just purchased server space with ixwebhosting and they're great. Their customer service is awesome and the interface is pretty easy. Here is a link to host reviews.
http://www.thehostingchart.com/?igojo=1&mej=406

Thats about right. Usually web hosting sites offer either free or a minimal fee for a domain name with purchase of hosting so those two steps would probably be together. What web design software are you planning on purchasing? I suggest dreamweaver and flash. Did that html class teach e-commerce and other code besides html as you will probably need to know that to offer retail on your website?

You may also want to look into PayPal (used on eBay and other well known sites) http://www.paypal.com as it offers many options for e-commerce.

I would look into getting a merchant account, which would be better than paypal. It would cost more, but your customer would not have to sign up to make payments. Plus if you get a merchant account you can take checks and all major credit cards.

OK, so like I said in my previous post, i am totally new to the website thing. i am trying to design a family website, just some pages of pictures, two or three small mpeg movies of the kid. I have my own domain name, the next step is software and a web hoster. i understand the webhosting thing, but how do i create a webpage? Do i do an online webpage builder provided by the webhoster? Or do i have to buy some kind of website builder for my ibook? If i build it on my ibook and not online, how does it get online? I am totally new to this and lost. i looked in the bookstore for guides but they were all for windows and mostly how to build a business site. PLEASE HELP ME BEFORE MY WIFE KILLS ME(she has been bugging me about this for the family to see our son grow).

Since you are new to the website building thing, I would suggest using the website builder offered by your hosting site. They make it really simple to add pictures, text, etc. to a site without having to know HTML or another scripting language for the web. Depending on what web host you selected, I am sure they give a tutorial on how to use their builder; if not you can always contact them and Im sure they will help.

If you are more of the daring type and want to take a crack at the web design yourself without help, I suggest picking up a book that is all about HTML code to start off with. You will also need a program that will help you design the website. I suggest Dreamweaver MX 2004. If you have those two things, you can easily create simple websites with pictures and text if you read up on it.

As for getting your webpages to the web, you will need a FTP program (this is if you dont use the builder offered by your web host). Dreamweaver has a built in FTP (file transfer proticol) program that you can use, but if you dont want to use that go to http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14426 and download Cyberduck. You will need to know the directory your files will go into, your physical server IP, and your username and password to access it. All of this should be provided by your hosting company. For more indepth information on FTP look in Dreamweaver's help or Google it on the web for tutorials.