Web Design Software?

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I'm trying to help a starving student friend of mine and wanted to get them setup on a website to showcase their wares. Can someone let me know of a good program/hosting site that's easy to use for web page design for someone with their own domain? In particular, something automates the transfer/saving of completed pages onto the webserver would be ideal - that can be a little tricky for someone not as versed into computers. Something like Dreamweaver is likely overkill in both capabilities and cost.

Gracias!

[maverickstruth]

The answer will largely depend on the type of "wares" in question, and what kind of showcasing is needed. Are we talking about products, artwork, photography, what? And is the site just intended to showcase, or to sell as well?

Depending on the answer, there are a number of existing communities to hook into -- e.g. DeviantArt and Etsy. The nice thing is people already know to look there, so "getting found" isn't as much of a problem.

If that doesn't suit, I'd suggest a simple Wordpress install (either hosted on wordpress.com or self-hosted) would do the trick. Lots of free, customizable themes for download, easy publishing and uploading, etc. Many web hosts offer one-click installs of WP as well, so that's an option. Other options like Joomla, Drupal, etc. could work too, but WP is just more widespread.

If need be, feel free to PM.

[Madman]

www.godaddy.com

They offer a good deal on hosting and you can get a deal on Website Tonite after you purchase a domain and hosting from them. Its really easy to setup a new site and maintain it afterwards.

[llama64]

Go Daddy, Dreamhost, Canadian Webhosting -- lots of decent, cheap web hosts out there.

As for software, if all you're looking for is an FTP client to handle synchronizations, check out FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/

If you are on a Mac platform, let me know and I'll post a list of all the good software I use.

For a good CMS that doesn't take long to modify, check out Wordpress: http://wordpress.org/

For graphics, you can give "The GiMP" a go, but nothing actually replaces Adobe's Photoshop despite what the evangelists say: http://www.gimp.org/

[Barnes]

I see this advertised on a podcast I watch on a regular basis. It looks pretty good and has gotten a lot of good press.

http://www.squarespace.com/

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Thanks guys, those hosted solutions are particularly intriguing and might be a good answer for my artist friend (he's a potter).

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Barnes

I see this advertised on a podcast I watch on a regular basis. It looks pretty good and has gotten a lot of good press.

http://www.squarespace.com/

Intriguing...

Do you know if this software can be setup to do portfolio sites? Or is it mostly just focused on blogs?

[Russic]

Wow ... ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the reason I am unmotivated to pursue a career in web development:

Originally Posted by Barnes

I see this advertised on a podcast I watch on a regular basis. It looks pretty good and has gotten a lot of good press.

http://www.squarespace.com/

That's nuts. In a few years my mom is going to have her own website.

[octothorp]

My wife has a pretty extensive Squarespace site that is definitely based around a blog, but also has portfolio elements built in. Everything except for the store component is done with Squarespace (the store is done through a separate service called Shopify).
edit: forgot the url:

www.uppercasegallery.ca

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by Barnes

I see this advertised on a podcast I watch on a regular basis. It looks pretty good and has gotten a lot of good press.

http://www.squarespace.com/

This looks like a very good program for someone who has no idea what they are doing, however if you are able to handle FTP, most shared hosting options out there offer 3 times the storage for 1/3 the price. The added bonus is you get to have a real domain name, including email.

My current host is Cirtex and they offer a lot of 'auto install' content management systems, php boards, photo album stuff, and database support etc.

I know this isn't the option for everyone, but I think that the pricing certainly reflects the oversimplifying they have done here. 50 bucks a month for 5 gigs is insane, when at Cirtex you can get 30 gigs and 3 times the bandwidth for $17 a month (or $13 if you prepay ) plus your $10 a year for your domain. This includes all the software you need to pretty much instantly have a photo album up and running with zero experience other than how to use either a regular FTP client, or the built in uploading software..

If cost is not an issue, and time is at a premium, go with Squarespace for sure, but realize that with not much effort you can get similar results for alot less $$.

Also, I know that there are coupons for Cirtex that allow you to have 50% off your first payment. I prepaid for 2 years when I signed up and paid less than 5 bucks a month for over double what you are getting from Squarespace.

[Barnes]

I have never used Squarespace, only saw a demo on The Totally Rad Show. They have a 10% off for life promo code TRS if anyone is thinking of signing up.

I am in no way affiliated with the show or squarespace, btw.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

something kinda weird - that squarespace doesn't work well on my work computer - ie 6. Maybe just my crappy work computer, but you might want to check.

Looked pretty decent for what it seems you are after though.

I have had a lot of interaction with the guys here: http://www.clickspace.com/ They used to start at $50 but for that you could build everything in a whysiwyg tool, upload your products, push them to ebay etc. Not sure where they price now...seem to be more into design than the platform then they used to be.