posted
I have a web site due by 9 AM on May 3. I have Microsoft Front Page 2000 on my computer.
I am trying to learn whether or not I can have my page on the web by the deadline. Also, I don't want to pay oodles of money.
So, if you can help refer me to something or give me an education, I'd appreciate it. I need to have some sort of e-mail or submission form, a discussion forum, links, and regular pages that connect to each other.
posted
A discussion forum?! You have to have one of those on your website?
*Fondly remembers the days when you were cool if you had a "homepage" consisting of text, some pictures, and a scrolling marquee.
Posts: 144 | Registered: Apr 2003
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posted
Are you publishing to a site that uses FrontPage extensions, Jenny? If so, you can use those extensions to, without any effort at all, create a relatively ugly site that has all those things.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Well, we'll need more information... and if you need to host a discussion forum, you'll need to either shell out the bucks for someone else's technology, or learn how to install your own on the server, which can take some doing.
Your best bet, if you seriously need this by the 3rd, is to just hire someone else with experience to do it. You're talking about a lot more than the usual "this is my kitty" first attempt at web design. Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
You have to have a forum, not create one, right? I mean, you just have to incorporate it into your web site? I have a forum on proboards. It's just for family, but it's pretty easy to set up.
I think you need a cgi script to make a form actually email you. You can get one on the web.
You don't need frontpage to make your site. You can actually do it in notepad. I use arachnophilia - a free program.
I would be glad to help you out. I'll be online pretty much for the rest of the day until 9:30 p.m. or so. You can email me foltzfamily@frontiernet.net if you want.
posted
*nod* There is, indeed, a FrontPage extension for discussion boards. In fact, if your server's hosting SharePoint, you've actually got the option of hosting some very interesting components.
If your server hosts these things, Jenny, I think using FrontPage for your purposes will indeed be easiest. If not, I think it'll just get in your way and you should consider hand-coding.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The idea is to create a forum where seasoned writers can mentor elementary student writers. I want to have some way the students can submit work for critique and feedback, and a discussion form for the kids to talk to each other and the mentors. I want to have a mentor profile page, and articles about the craft of writing. I'll have links to magazines and websites that publish kids' work.
I don't have to have everything fully functional yet. I just want to make it look good and give my professor the idea of what the site is designed to do.
And I would like it to be fully functional in the future!
Go about halfway down the page, to the second comparison chart. I'm considering the "mid-site" option.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Oh, and this deadline crunch is all my own fault. I spent so much time on the Big Fantasy Unit that I now have no time to work on the Related Big Project for the Other Class.
My professor gave us an open-ended project, and of course I have to come up with something brilliant but impossible.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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My husband can do some, but I'm completely lost with that. I'm finding that I can play around in Front-Page okay. It's enough to impress my professor, I think. I'm sure I'm the only person fool enough to try a project this ambitious. I'm learning that leaving me to choose my own projects means that my standards for what makes a good project far exceed the expectations of the class. But how the heck should I know? I have no one and nothing to compare myself to.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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quote:By golly, you've come to the right place! Take a crash course in the vikimouse ABC School of HTML! It may not be rulebook html, but it works and here's my guarantee: If you haven't written your first webpage in less than ONE HOUR, I will give you my firstborn child! As a matter of fact, if you DO complete your first webpage in less than an hour, I'll still give you my firstborn child. Ok? Ok!
posted
Actually, since you're talking about file submissions, revisions, feedback, and that kind of thing, Microsoft SharePoint Services is actually a great idea -- and very simple to implement, if your host supports it. If not, you'll have to go with another idea.
posted
I do have a resident computer guy who's willing to help me where needed. But he's pretty busy lately, and is helping with taking care of the housework and kid while I write text. So as much as I can do on my own is good.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
why don't you lay it out on paper - write up the text and figure out how it should look. Then you can concentrate getting it online.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
You don't need to buy SharePoint Team Services, but it DOES require that the host be running IIS 6. I can't find anything to indicate that the site to which you linked supports SharePoint, but I might be overlooking that piece of info.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
I've got the framework. I'm putting it all together on my Front Page. The text is in progress, but I know generally what I want to say.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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I just really need to know how long it takes to get something put up online. If it takes a week, it's not going to happen. If it takes 24 hours, then I know I have to be finished by Saturday.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
once it's formatted, it takes a minute or two to actually get it online ... but you do need to allow time for tweaking Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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btw, I was interested in the site you mentioned - http://www.sitelutions.com/. I called them with a question - and their phone menu sucks. Don't hope to talk to a live person.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Since you're looking at a discussion forum, it will actually take more time for tweaking than you'd think -- because you don't have a server at home, and consequently will need to get the forum online and running before you can really see what it looks like. If you can't go the SharePoint route, there are LOTS of us who're hosting simple online forums that can walk you through the process of uploading and installing one.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
The website I mentioned actually was one I clicked on at the bottom of Hatrack... It seemed to have really good prices compared to other hosts that support Front Page.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
finish your text, but also figure out exactly where you will be hosted. You will need info from there to be able to ftp to it.
As an example, when I had cable internet, I could drag my files from my desktop to an Internet Explorer window and they were online. When I switched to DSL (much faster for the same price), I now have to use an ftp program.
Arachnophilia will ftp for you. I don't use it because it updates all new files to the site, and I don't want to send them all right now.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
I'm not overly sure exactly how much you want it to do by the time it's finished, but depending on how much you want it to do by completion, you may want to go for a host that has more support to allow you to install other things (there are plenty of good free forums out there, such as the one that pweb uses (which also has our resident Zevlag working on it), though I suppose what you really want to do right now is churn something out really fast... Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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How do I figure out exactly where it will be hosted? What do I need to do? Should I look for someplace that has Front Page support? Should I just write the text in Word and transfer when I want to go online?
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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ByU, got a link? And yes, the idea is to get something out fast. But also cheap, if possible. The hubby will flip if it's too expensive.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
I would put the text in Notepad. You can copy and paste into Frontpage later. My reason for saying this is because if you want something bold, for instance, you want it to get the bold code from Frontpage, not Word.
Any word processing system will add its own codes to what you type. Notepad will not - it's text in its simplest form.
To explain this, my example is that I check email at work. We get Word documents sent in. I have to save the document, then open in a text editor called TXWord. The text will have weird characters in it - letters with accents instead of quotes, for instance. We have to make sure everything gets cleaned up. Sometimes we miss one.
So, Notepad is better - just type it in there and you can put it into Frontpage later.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Put your pages together in Front Page, text, links, pictures, and all. When they're all set up just like you want to see them online, then transfer them to your website.
Posts: 144 | Registered: Apr 2003
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a few months ago these guys had their "most popular" service for 3 years free, right now it's $5 a month for 500mb space with 5g of bandwidth a month ($0.99 for ever gig above that), frontpage extentions allowed, and then they also give you a really long URL which if you go to these guys you can get a something.gotdns.org subdomain for free to use for now. They support the standard PHP, MySQL (with 100mb seperate from your webspace), and then 50 email addresses (with ?50mb? each...also seperate from your web space). And then they do google bot and everything in the package...though I doubt you need that. Satyagraha
posted
Jenny, I did a quick search for STS hosting providers and came up with this group as the cheapest of the lot: http://www.webhost4life.com/hosting.asp
I have no idea if they're any good, but they seem economical.
They do a 30-day free trial, preconfigure your site, and are a relatively "known" name -- for $20/month, which is pretty reasonable. At the very least, you can go with the trial period, let them set the site up for you, and show it to your prof as a proof of concept.
posted
I have big dreams for this website. But for now, it's a class project that determines 40% of my grade. My husband thinks I'm typically going overboard with what I want to do. He seems to think we should settle for your basic website with notes about the forum and submission form, and leave out the whistles and bells. I wonder, though, if they are easy to include or not.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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I'm stepping out now, to make dinner and all, but I'll be back on the computer later tonight. Thanks for all the help, and I'll keep posting here as I work on the project. I'll send the hubby here, too, so I can get his input.
Thank you so much!!!
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Well, Tom seems to have you covered. That is a good deal. Let us know when you get back. Plenty of us around to help you.
Posts: 2102 | Registered: Dec 2000
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posted
If you have front page, throw it out. get note pad out, and download a php forum script. ASP, or CGI is ok too, but I recommend PHP. Make sure you have MySQL access, and then just follow the README file directions.
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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posted
Frontpage works well enough for just throwing up a website in a week, learning enough html, php, css, and mysql to make a good useful site takes a bit more than a week. Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Okay, I've decided to just create a FrontPage web withough messing around with trying to get it online. This probably means taking my laptop to my professor's office, but so be it.
Problem: When I go to the "preview" page, my text shows up as black bars. Now what?
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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You may want to avoid the whole idea of building it yourself and go for something that allows you to simply manage content, rather than having to create an entire site from scratch.
I've been working with Mambo Open Source a free and VERY easy to use content management system. Essentially it allows you to forget about all the coding hassles and concentrate solely on the content.
And since you're going to have to mess around with a few database and scripting technologies anyway (such as PHP and mySQL), it shouldn't be much more trouble than installing just the forum itself.
If you want to contact me off-list, I'm available on AIM as TooTrueTroubs
Posts: 2245 | Registered: Nov 1998
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I'm sticking with what I've got. I don't have much time to screw around. If I have to show off a crappy product, so be it. I only have a few days to write all the content, and I'm staying up too late every night as it is.
I'm settling for a bad grade if I must. I just need to get done.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
First of all, I want to thank all of you who have listened to me whine about this project. And then I want to put myself at the service of all those who willingly shared their expertise and put up with my panic and crankiness.
I have a web presence now, but it's ugly. There is some sort of problem that makes all my text on banners and buttons turn into black rectangles. Also, some of the pages didn't take the banners and buttons and backgrounds at all! So you can't click out of them. I'm not sure what is wrong or how to fix it. Front Page has universal "themes" and page setups for buttons, and I applied them. But I can't figure out what went wrong.
My dear hubby is looking into this problem. Any ideas you have on the matter would be welcome.
The website is at youngwritersguild.netfirms.com. Of course, none of the forms or forums really work, but you can get the idea of what I'm trying to do.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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posted
Jenny, I'm no FrontPage expert -- I don't use it to design any of my pages -- but it looks like the images it's creating for your links are the problem. The .gifs themselves contain those black rectangles, suggesting that the program is having difficulty applying the text to the theme. Sadly, I can't help you any more than that, except to suggest that perhaps you should make your own images for the links as a workaround.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Current solution - take my laptop to my professor's office and demo it in person. Added benefit - I can use all my charm and knowledge as I show it off to convince that I really know what I'm doing... Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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It seemed to have really good prices compared to other hosts that support Front Page.
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