The Auswine Forum

Hi all

I noticed Mike's comments on Tyson's new web site thread about the joys, not of setting up a website.

Am toying with idea of a site, a small simple one and wondered if anyone had some tips for new players on web hosting, setting up a new site and if blogs are better way to go.

I am non specific for a reason as I want to keep an open mind at this stage of where to take this idea I have.

TIA

regards
NN

Neville

Well I know what I want to put in my perfect wine web site, at least in general. But the reason why I'm not banging away on a computer doing it is because it takes time, lots and lots of time.

I spend 9-10 hours a day at my real job. But I also take time out to visit the web during the day to post or to find stuff to put in my Shiraz eBlog. However I can never find enough time to post daily as a blogger should do, nor can I devote enough time to each post to really do it justice. (I have a bunch of ideas that will probably never get posted, and the longer I wait the older and less interesting they become.) I've lost count of the roughly written tasting notes that I have to rewrite for my Tasting Notes eBlog, and that is just for the last couple of months. My plan to post all my TNs, going back numerous years, is very unlikely to happen.

But I'm not trying to rain on your plans. By all means go for it. We need more web content on Aussie wines.

For a blog be prepared to spend at least several hours a day hunting down something interesting and writing a post. For a more conventional web site the time is really in the planning and writing of the content. Then you can sit back and relax, until you want to revamp something. Given what I have seen with web sites on other subjects it can take years to get something that you are happy with.

Plus you also have to find time to drink!

Mike

Neville Nessuno wrote:H

Am toying with idea of a site, a small simple one and wondered if anyone had some tips for new players on web hosting, setting up a new site and if blogs are better way to go.

Neville it all depends on precisely what sort of site you want and the features you want to offer, like content search, database support, server-side features etc. And how much you want to spend.

Most ISP's provide 10mb or so of free we space, with a default url based on you username, but charge extra to host a specific domain name.

About the simplest you can do is one like mine, built with Frontpage, static menus, minimal javascript, it's pretty easy to maintain, but can look pretty basic unless you have a graphics/layout flair (which I don't). It suits me, I'll hit the space limit in a year or to then I'll simply cull some of the earliest material, by the nature of my site it's probably not of great interest to many to know the special buys on a day 3 years ago.

Ric's site (getting a bit of a makeover at present) is hosted overseas with pretty cheap rates for the basic stuff, including search facility, you pay more for windows-based database support etc.

One small negative for blog sites, many big companies and government agencies include these on the banned site lists.

Long term planning is also important. When my blogs grow up I want them to merge and look like this or this. For me the intent is to go from a blog to a content based site. But the kicker for a site with tasting notes is having a simple but highly effective search facility. eBob is probably the best example I know; but its not free.

Mike

One thing I forgot to mention, AVOID FRAMES!

Unless you want to prevent or make it very difficult for people to link directly to a page on your site, do not use Frames. Frames are Evil. Frames are an invention of the Devil!

I think Tyson made a bad decision to use frames on his new site.

Just ask Ric, he's busy redoing his whole site to get rid of frames.

Red Bigot wrote:One thing I forgot to mention, AVOID FRAMES!

Frames are Evil. Frames are an invention of the Devil!

Just ask Ric, he's busy redoing his whole site to get rid of frames.

ARRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr Helpppppppppp

Worst mistake I made was to use frames; they cause a heap of extra work and it's a nightmare to keep the site funstioning properly.

I had my origional site professionally built and have been able to maintain it myself; with a load of technical help from Brian from time to time.

Redesigning the site has been a nightmare; it started off well and has just become more and more complicated. You think something will work and then find glitch after glitch.

Right now, I have one member of the forum helping me with the techno stuff and neither of us are getting much sleep and thats why he doesnt have time to post here at the moment.

So, its a lot of work!

I'm working on (but I'm slack and busy and don't have the time) a wine weblog. I host it myself, but I don't suggest doing that unless you have the facilities and know what you're doing.

There are thousands of web hosts out there. Australian based hosts tend to be more expensive, but more convenient if something breaks. I can make some suggestions if you'd like, but like I said - there are thousands.

Some weblog software is pretty versatile. I use WordPress, and there's a bunch of plugins and themes that turn it from simple weblog software into a powerful content management system. It's pretty trivial to set up, but if you don't want to do that, WordPress has links to specialist WordPress hosts on their site that take care of the setting up for you. They're pretty good, apparently.

There are, of course, dozens (if not hundreds) of other content management and weblog software out there - Drupal, Scoop, Slash, GreyMatter, MovableType... lots. I can't offer suggestions as to which is "better" since I've only used MT and WordPress recently.

I can't offer much help when it comes to design or content, but most WordPress themes are simple to modify and tweak to your liking, once you find a good theme as a base.

I've noticed the need to be different. There's a lot of wine weblogs and review sites out there, and to avoid being like all the others it's probably a good idea to specialize in something - perhaps a region of Australia, an enclosure, a certain vintage, whatever.

Good luck!

I quite like Joomla http://www.joomla.org as a good, simple and free content management system.

You can tryout a number of CMSes online at http://www.opensourcecms.com which will give you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the various packages before you choose one.