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Want to start a website

rjm727

Well Known Member
I would like to learn about the various website development and hosting tool that builders are using. I would like to do something similar to Brad Oliver's website (www.rv7factory.com). If you have not seen it I highly recommend taking a look! He has done a great job on the site and it has been very informative and motivating for me!

I want something that I can work on offline, is easy to use and doesn't break the bank. The reason I want to start one is to document my work and, hopefully, motivate others.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ray
 
Everything you need to build a website is free to run on your own computer. At a minimum, you need a text editor (notepad, for example) and something to pull up the page with (your browser).

You can buy various tools (Dreamweaver, for example) that can make it go faster, but most of them require that you understand HTML at least a bit. You can start learning HTML here: http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

After that, you'll need a hosting site to upload your files to.

If learning HTML is daunting, you might be better off using a purpose built "tool" such as MyKitLog which will create a website for you.
 
If you want to spend more time building your plane instead of maintaining a web site (;)), KitLog Pro works great.

That aside, Corey (above) had some good tips for building something from scratch as Brad did, I believe.
 
I'm no computer or software expert so I faced the same questions when I wanted to set mine up. I don't know how to program or write in HTML code or anything like that. I decided to learn Dreamweaver and use it, because some of the Kitlog programs limit how many photos you can post, and other limitations. You work with it offline. Then I upload my finished pages to my ISP when I'm done with them. You can get a free 30-day trial with Dreamweaver and try it out for no risk. Then I bought an older version on eBay for a fraction of the cost of the newest release, figuring I don't need all the newest bells and whistles. Works for me.

It's a whole new learing experience and a project in itself. I'm gradually learning enough HTML to be able to make tweaks and changes as I need to. I'm still learning and my website is far from complete. But I have no regrets. It's been very rewarding. I followed Brad Oliver's website for a long time and really got a lot out of his site. But since I passed him up, I've had to look elsewhere. He does excellent work, though, and he's a great guy.
 
You can try this as well..
http://www.blogger.com/features

I think you just need to setup a free google mail account, and then get started. You should just be able to follow the wizards to setup your account..

Speaking of blog sites, Wordpress can be another good option. But Kitlog will capture a lot of the building details vs. generic blogging platform.

Then again, I'm an IT geek, so I'm custom coding add-ons to a content-management system to support my build site. At least it gives me something to do other than clean the garage, while I'm waiting to actually get started. However you go, in the end you want it to be easy to work with, easy and hopefully fun to do... (Most of my current work is around streamlining the process from inserting the camera's memory card to the pics showing up in a post...ideally almost all automated.)

If you do roll your own, you can keep it very simple...and decent hosting can be had for around $5-10 per month. (Just be sure to always have a local copy of your data saved. Stuff happens.)

It's a whole new learing experience and a project in itself. I'm gradually learning enough HTML to be able to make tweaks and changes as I need to. I'm still learning and my website is far from complete. But I have no regrets. It's been very rewarding. I followed Brad Oliver's website for a long time and really got a lot out of his site. But since I passed him up, I've had to look elsewhere. He does excellent work, though, and he's a great guy.

Great pics on your site by the way. And a good point -- although coming from the vantage of not even having started -- I imagine working on a site is a very rewarding experience of it's own. (Or a good break/expression point when building gets frustrating. :))
 
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Ray,

I have managed to get 3Gbytes of webspace and domain name registration for just under 15 Euros per year (thats about 20 bucks) through one.com who are based in Denmark. One.com help in designing your website with readily available templates. They also load a MySQL database and have enabled PHP to help you if you want to go your own way.

Check with other web service providers, the above deal is very good and 3Gb is plenty for a build site. Choose an appropriate URL for your website and register it through the provider of your choice. Unfortunately rayandyvette.com is already taken.
 
There's always a learning curve, no matter what you use. I went from a custom website (embarassingly 90's style now as you can tell from the remnants of my RV-6 page) that I hand-coded in HTML to using MediaWiki. I chose the wiki because it was 1)free, 2)secure, and 3)updatable without any special software. Sure, I still need to be able to edit pictures or videos, but once that's been done I can add content from any web browser. I added content to our EAA chapter's site (also using MediaWiki) while I was at Oshkosh last year, using a netbook and their wi-fi. The wiki automates a lot of page organization for me. I could make it look fancier or 'prettier' but I've chosen to keep it very simple rather than showing my ignorance as a layout artist. The setup may require some help from someone experienced but editing requires about the same skill set as any other application. Anyway, just tossing out another possibility.
 
I was not happy....

I was not happy with the look of my build site and reading this thread prompted me to do something about it. The old site was based on a free template that was offered by One.com, with whom I have registered my domain name and who provide 3Gb of space for around €15 (Euros) per year. Thats about $20. The old site used static HTML pages to display content and the style (look and feel) configuration was held in stylesheets.

I wanted something that was a bit more personalised. I use a Linux based laptop loaded with Ubuntu. All the basic elements and tools for web design are available in this laptop. That is Linux, Apache, MySQL and PhP. This is known as LAMP architecture. What I also needed was a content management system.

The Internet is a wonderful place and free Open Source software is the icing on the cake. After a search through available Open Source content management systems I found WordPress. So, I set up a MySQL database on my laptop downloaded WordPress and got to work. The results are here:

Anthony's RV-3B

Here is the old site for comparison:

Anthony's Old Site

WordPress has thousands of website templates to choose from. The hardest part of this exercise was choosing a template that I liked. I personally like fairly simple styles that do not detract from the content. I hate black backgrounds and garish colours. The header was a slight issue as it was originally to bland, so I made up a collage of photographs using Shape Collage, which is also available for free. All the pages that can be seen are dynamic pages. That is they are constructed using PhP scripts (bits of programing) and the content is stored in the MySQL database. The MySQL database also stores a whole other bunch of configuration stuff.

The usual categories are there on the new site, such as Workshop, Empennage, Wings, Firewall Forward etc. These categories are not displayed unless there is a post assigned to them. There is also a spell checker, similar to that what is available on VAF when writing posts. I must say that I do not correct any spelling such as "colour" instead of color or "personalise" instead of personalize.

Let me have your feedback on my new site. If you like what I have developed, I might be even be persuaded to help set up other websites as long as it does not take me away from building my RV-3.
 
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Free and easy

I'm using Blogger, owned by Google. No cost, easy to use:

http://schmetterlingaviation.blogspot.com/

It will even get back to having actual "build" content on it if that month-late RV-12 fuse kit ever shows up.

You can work offline for the text, but not the photos.

I would like to learn about the various website development and hosting tool that builders are using. I would like to do something similar to Brad Oliver's website (www.rv7factory.com). If you have not seen it I highly recommend taking a look! He has done a great job on the site and it has been very informative and motivating for me!

I want something that I can work on offline, is easy to use and doesn't break the bank. The reason I want to start one is to document my work and, hopefully, motivate others.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Ray
 
Blogger is good.

Linux is great.

http://rv-4builder.blogspot.com/

Is my jotter.

I do however have quite a bit of documentation I would like to share with the on line community which would be best handled with a ftp site.

HTML is easy enough to learn well enough to suit most purposes.

If any one knows of a reliable free server let me know.
 
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