Design My Own Website

webdesignerscotty answers:

Http://www.programmingtutorials.com/

http://www.geekpedia.com/

If you want to do a screen capture video (like with Camtasia) then of course the various video sharing websites (youtube, metacafe) are good choices too

webdesignerscotty answers:

Sun’s site is almost always overlooked for some reason. http://java.sun.com

webdesignerscotty answers:

Some extremely helpful websites are:

http://www.w3schools.com/

http://www.dreamincode.net/

http://www.alistapart.com

http://www.sitepoint.com/

http://www.experts-exchange.com/

As far as books go, it depends on what specific language you are trying to learn. A lot of people recommend the O’Relly books but I have found they are much better for reference, not for learning. The “Dummies” is really good, but my favorite is Sams 24 Hour Publishing. Here are two examples:

Sams 24 Hour C Language
Sams 24 Hour CSS/HTML

webdesignerscotty answers:

An acquaintance was involved with the beta testing of this software. He liked it and said it has awesome features!

Http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/events-training/tutorials.mspx

webdesignerscotty answers:

Its the same if you are looking for ‘A COMPLETE PROGRAMMING GUIDE’.

For complete programming guide:

I would suggest you to go through some basics first from(Go Step by step)
1) http://www.landofcode.com/
2) http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:How_to_Write_a_Program/
3) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Topic:Computer_programming
4)http://www.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Programming

For a crash course:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming
2) http://www.w3schools.com (web application related, not complete programming)

webdesignerscotty answers:

Do you have a budget? Do you know html and how to edit/create graphics? Otherwise you can create logos from business clipart. There are a lot of great free and also inexpensive cilpart collections out there you can base your log off of

webdesignerscotty answers:

There are many great free websites you can use to build a website. However, for a competition you will want to host your own website with a hosting company ($5 to $10 a month) and your own domain ($15 a year). Pretty cheap to be able to host your own website! Depending on the contest, you can design your own or you can use WordPress. If you design your own, check out Web Design Mastery for a pretty complete ebook course on web design from a technical and usability point of view.

Otherwise you can use WordPress. This site you’re reading right now is designed in WordPress. Pretty simple to install. Here’s a great video I found on getting a hosting company, installing WordPress, and putting up your first blog, all in about 15 minutes

How Do You Start A Blog Video

For hosting, check out Host Monster or Host Gator.

webdesignerscotty answers:

If its anything like graphics design.. Employers are pleased to see when I make 1 site with alot of different examples
LIKE A PORTFOLIO

I have a portfolio with graphic designs, fine art designs, 3d designs.

In my opinion, I’d rather see a single website that has links to different types of writings by the same authors.

webdesignerscotty answers:

Such a website is easily achievable by yourself, this is of course providing you know what you are doing in terms of website development, however I am going to (perhaps wrongly) assume that you are not experienced with developing such a site.

Given that you are not willing or are unable to pay someone to do it, there are other options(However be aware that by not paying someone to do it, you may not get exactly what you want)

Not to worry though, you can use some pre-build systems which provide a content management system: One worth mentioning is Joomla:

www.Joomla.org provides a generic content management system for your website, all you need to do is find a suitable front end(What the customer sees) for it. There are several developers out there who spend some time developnig free(ior for low cost) front end designs which are easy to use with the joomla architecture.

The other one is WordPress. This used to be more limited than Joomla but is quickly growing in possible functionality. This site your’e reading right now is designed in WordPress and I only utilized the “easy” stuff. With plugin capability there is a lot you can do with WordPress.

Check out this video on buying a hosting company, installing WordPress, and building a WordPress blog in about 15 minutes

How Do You Start A Blog Video

I hope that helps

webdesignerscotty answers:

Depending upon what you want – static or interactive database stuff, you need a range of skills.

First off design skills – photoshop / illustrator or equivalent software and then for backend stuff if you need that database and coding skills – php/sql/asp – take your pick with whatever you’re comfotable with. There is a range of open source stuff you can get for free – Gimp and Inkscape are excellent.

I’ve been a web designer for years, and I’ve not really known anyone comfortable doing the whole thing on their own – I’m sure there are designers/coders but in my experience they’re completely different people.

Dreamweaver is (an albeit hard to edit code) fairly good web editor; get a demo from macromedia.com.

The software isn’t cheap – if you have a great idea get the professionals in to do it.

If your website only requires more simple functionality, I’m a strong proponent of WordPress (like this site you’re reading)

webdesignerscotty answers:

For books I highly recommend the “For Dummies” and “Sams 24 Hour” series. Great for reference and for learning! Sams just came out with a great new HTML and CSS book:

http://designmyownwebsite.net/go/sams24hourhtml.html

I love using it as a reference!

webdesignerscotty answers:

Learning both is extremely helpful. Start here for some great online tutorials:

http://www.w3schools.com/

webdesignerscotty answers:

I personally love learning from books. However, for video tutorials you’d be surprised how much stuff youtube has on it. Just do a keyword search for what you’re looking for on youtube and you’ll find some great video tutorials

webdesignerscotty answers:

There is no point in learning CSS until you learn HTML. Otherwise you are not really going to know how to apply what you learn about CSS.

Http://www.w3schools.com/ will give you tutorials for learning both CSS and HTML.

A great book to get offline is “Sams 24 Hour” series for HTML and CSS

http://designmyownwebsite.net/go/sams24hourhtml.html

Also for an ebook, Web Design Mastery is a fantastic reference and set of ebooks

webdesignerscotty answers:

The right book will offer more than theory. It will give you guidance, take you through the process, and help you write your own code.

No book will teach you anything worthwhile without practice, but a good book can be a priceless guide.

You can only learn web development by doing it, but it’s best to do it with the guidance of an experienced teacher who’s taught thousands of others to do it, who has carefully thought about the sequence (what order you should learn things in), who has carefully picked out the important things and culled away all the older ways of thinking that are no longer valid, and who gives you challenges appropriate to your current level of skill.

Once you know the basics, you can move on to more complex and powerful tools like JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, and AJAX,

webdesignerscotty answers:

I highly recommend PHP as it will dramatically improve any website you build. PHP is a serverside scripting language which allows you to pass information between a website and the server. You should also learn MySQL because it deals with databases. It will be best if I explain it like this:

PHP will allow you to:
-Create “locked” websites that require login.
-Display/Hide stuff based on certain conditions
-Generate HTML more efficiently (like use loops to generate the same HTML multiple times)
-Give HTML forms functionality and send data to the server to be used.

MySQL will allow you to:
-Combine with PHP to STORE data in databases. (such as login information: username, password, signup date, etc.)
-Search databases and retrieve data for PHP to use.
-Store actual forum posts and messages for others to see. (If you’ve ever been on a website’s forums, then everything you see is stored in a database and retrieved every time you load it!)

So in reality, PHP is not as powerful unless you combine it with MySQL! The ability to create forms for your users to fill out, retrieve the data and store it is a giant leap to making a good website. You will be able to store many things in a database. You could even create some sort of online store where you create a database that stores product information (Name, Cost, Description) and use PHP to do the math to calculate tax. Also both MySQL and PHP can remember information really well and create a sort of online shopping cart sort of thing.

I highly recommend PHP and MySQL.

webdesignerscotty answers:

Its relatively easy to learn HTML and CSS. But I would suggest you to start with some HTML editor in design mode. This will help you in visualizing the GUI design and check the code generated by editor. I personally prefer and recommend Dreamweaver. It generates clean HTML code and you will be able to understand how HTML can be coded effectively. Yes, it also allows you to write styles inline as well as external stylesheet.
To start with try to create a basic web page using HTML editor. Then see how HTML code has been generated by editor. You may then want to optimize it. This will give you command over HTML gradually. Similarly start with inline styles and then start writing external style sheets.