Website help/advice

[steedee]

As some of you may know i play in a district pool league.

since the previous league chairman stepped down two seasons ago, the league's website has not been updated due to the software used not being compatable with the incoming chairmans computer.

in truth i suspect its more of a case of the new chairman being an idiot.

i'd love to have a website up and running again but it looks like if its gonna happen its gonna need to be done from scratch.

i'm by no means a computer genius but what i lack in knowledge i hopefully make up for in enthusiasm. I know many of you have your own websites so will have a decent idea how i go about this so any contributions to this thread will be welcome.

basically i need info on:

. obtaining software
. cost of software
. how the software works (as i said, not a genius!)
. how to get webspace
. cost of webspace
. possible cost of getting website designed by somone else
. accessing and updating site once live.
. any other important knowledge i will need to do this.


thanks in advance for all your contributions guys!

[Matt_2745]

What sort of content would you be looking at putting on?

With mine (and that of crucible77), they have been done on Wordpress which is something that allows you to do a blog, though in reality it is more of a mini-website as you can set up pages and do pretty much whatever you want.

Best bit is that it is easy to use and free (unless you want to buy upgrades).

Aside from that I'm a bit clueless and expect you would probably want something a bit more professional, but with a bit of work you can achieve good results on Wordpress if working a minimal budget.

[steedee]

in terms of a budget, i dont know because im gonna approach the league about funds.

i basically need two league tables, squad lists, league fixtures, 2 knockout fixtures, results section, merit tables, and maybe a small blog section for announcements and awards.

[ferret]

I can sort out cheap web space for you no problem, your best option would be to go with a pre designed CMS like wordpress and Matt says, there are several options out there.

Or if you wanted something totally custom to your site I can also sort that out and design it in such a way that you can update it form the web as the software required will cost you around £400

[DandyA]

or maybe something like www.leaguerepublic.com ...

here's the pool league I've just started playing in http://sunburypool.leaguerepublic.co...?siteid=201363

[RocketRoy1983]

Thats a very good offer from ferret by the way Paul as a complete package is often more and you know your in safe hands with "Mr Technology"

[Matt_2745]

in terms of a budget, i dont know because im gonna approach the league about funds.

i basically need two league tables, squad lists, league fixtures, 2 knockout fixtures, results section, merit tables, and maybe a small blog section for announcements and awards.

Reckon you could set that up easily enough in one night on Wordpress, assuming that there is a theme there that you like.

[steedee]

guys you've already been a great help nice one!

next league meeting is week on sunday so i will bring the subject up and see what they have and what they want. i know there must be available funds cos everyone on my team pays full subs and gets £50 back at the end. theres 10 of us and 22 teams so by my maths thats a surpless of about a grand!!!!

wether or not they are prepared to spend it is a whole other matter.

if they get all tight fisted on me both Matt and dandy have given reasonable free alternatives but ferret, we could well do business if they give me the go ahead!

[visionaire]

Hosting can be done very cheaply on www.one.com , very good price and great tech support!

They also offer a basic page designer (IE only)

For the more advanced side of things, the website tutorialized.com has many sections related to software and languages for websites (HTML, CSS, Photoshop, Flash & Actionscript, PHP, Javascript, AJAX).

My website www.ronflorax.com (shameless plug for ancient website, though loads of snooker dvds on www.ronflorax.com/rackemup) was done with Dreamweaver and Photoshop, and uses HTML, CSS, PHP and Flash.

[Lao Shi]

Go to www.godaddy.co.uk and purchase yourself a domain name. You then need to purchase some hosting space, there are loads of packages out there, may I suggest one and one - I would imagine you should be fine with the "home" package at £5.99 a month.

Once you have the hosting, you then register the domain to it - the people who sold you the hosting space should talk you through this. Also, one and one have areally nice web based interface - which means you dont need addidional software (an FTP client for example) to upload stuff to your hosting space.

Apparently they also chuck in a load of design software worth £400, and have some website building tools. So you should have a half decent looking site in no time. If you want something advanced, then drop me a PM and I can put you in touch with a few friends who can build you something kick ass fora few quid.

If you need any help with anything, then drop me a PM - I used to work as a "reseller" and basic web designer. But, just muck around and try a few things out and you'll findyour feet in no time

John

[DandyA]

well yes, we all have our favourites, but my suggestion www.leaguerepublic.com offers hosting and all the facilities for free, doesn't it?

it's not out of the goodness of their heart ... they get their money from a small amount of advertising on each league's website ...

there's probably other similar sites but that one seems to do the jub nicely ...