Makin' a Website

[tegan]

I need a little help. Are there any current Idle Thumbs or Giant Bomb deals going on for Squarespace or Hover? Also, does Squarespace also handle hosting or would I need both services if I wanted to use a Squarespace template thing?

 

(I'm making a portfolio thingy)

[Mangela Lansbury]

Squarespace provides hosting and I think they don't charge you to register a domain if you pay for a full year of service up front? I'm actually not sure if you can use a Squarespace template without using them as a host, but without looking into it at all, it just doesn't feel like that's something you can do.

 

No clue on whether or not the discount codes are active.

[JonCole]

Pretty sure the current promo code for SS from GB is "coolbaby" but i'm not 100$ sure

[SuperBiasedMan]

I don't know about the Thumbs or GiantBomb but I'm listening to You Are Not So Smart right now and he has a code for SquareSpace: 'Lessdumb'

Not sure if you specifically wanted to support GB or IT though.

[melmer]

Squarespace can be very expensive, it depends what you want to do with the site. Do you intend to make it an online store? Do you want to set up a patronage thing? etc.

 

As i'm sort of a web designer :-/ I used to host my own portfolio site when i was looking for work, now i'm in a stable job i've stopped as hosting cost a fortune

 

Have you thought about setting up a portfolio on a site like Behance, you could then buy a domain name and have it point to it

 

I'm not the best person to give advice about this type of stuff, i guess all i'm saying is hosting your own site can be pricey and there are alternatives

[Thrik]

Squarespace is a service so the template and hosting is all part of one thing. I wouldn't go with them because you're locked in, in that you can't (and aren't allowed to) take the site and host it elsewhere. Once you've actually built it and mostly finished using their lovely editing tools, you're pretty much just paying a huge premium for unremarkable hosting.

 

If you just want somewhere to host your own design/code then you'd be better off going with an economical hosting package, for example EuroVPS does a great mini plan that has performance on par with its (awesome) higher-level plans but with far less diskspace and bandwidth, thus making the price really cheap — albeit paid yearly. You're in Canada so that's probably not any good for you, but there must be similar North American deals.

 

If you're just doing a portfolio then a wise approach might be to install WordPress on a regular hosting plan — which virtually any host allows you to do with a few button presses nowadays — and then install one of the numerous free portfolio themes out there. You're then in complete control, and WordPress even updates itself automatically nowadays. If you ever change your mind about your host and want to go somewhere cheaper/better, it's a total cinch. Most hosts are familiar with WordPress too and are willing to help if things go wrong.

[Merus]

Squarespace is expensive, but I wasn't going to tell Teg to just go do what I would do because 1) I haven't actually and 2) her tolerance for cobbling together a website is likely a lot lower than the average professional computer person, which is why blogs and now Squarespace exist in the first place. I wasn't going to say anything because 'Squarespace is sort of expensive buuuuuuuut you can be done with it today and not have to worry' wasn't useful, but now it is!

[JonCole]

I used Squarespace for a while and I was quite satisfied with their service, but I can't help but feel that the WordPress suggestion is better because of greater flexibility and probably lower cost in the long run. That said, Squarespace is measurably easier to setup and make look good than anything I've tried since. I used it for a blog.

[Thrik]

Another thing worth considering is using a site such as Dribbble or Behance as a portfolio. It isn't necessarily seen as a negative thing to do this (unless you're a web designer/developer, in which case building your own from scratch is ideal), and it comes with a lot of bonuses like exposing you to potential clients and making it easier to solicit feedback. It's a bit like how a lot of people let their LinkedIn profiles do a lot of the work when it comes to attracting employers rather than having some static resume/info site sat somewhere on the internet which nobody ever comes across.

[melmer]

http://www.sessions.edu/notes-on-design/top-8-portfolio-sites-for-2014

 

Krop looks good, if the sites are free there's no harm in setting up a profile on each

[Nachimir]

I'd recommend against Squarespace too. An old employer used to use it, and not only are you locked in, it can get expensive fast. IIRC, loads of gotchas in the vein of "Oh, you want to do [thing]? That'll just be an extra five bucks a month then! Per site".

[melmer]

I thought i got a fantastic deal on hosting a few years back but it wasn't until after i had handed over my money that i realised part of the terms were that i had to hand over the ownership of my domain name

 

no way am i giving over melmer.co.uk (which i'm thinking about using to make a portal for my wedding, this is some shit free website builder thing that 123 reg has, it'll do for what i need)

[Nachimir]

(Argh. Mington, I'd advise moving all of your domains away from 123-reg. Their owner, webfusion, is dodgy as fuck and will "mysteriously reset" to auto-renew any domains you set to lapse, which they give you a ridiculously narrow window to do. They committed paypal fraud after I cancelled my billing agreement with them (loads more cases like this if you google, including one where they somehow tracked down a business partner and took the money from their paypal account), paypal immediately ruled in my favour and refunded the money, and their response to that is to lock the account, along with all domains still attached to it, and post a notification about an "unlocking fee" exactly equal to whatever amount they stole in the first place. I knew how they'd behave so planned for it and didn't lose any money or domains I wanted, but from the bottom of my heart, fuck them and their shitty company. LCN.com have been really good since I transferred the domains to them).

 

(Edit: Actually, that was strategychocolate.biz. The first year I tried to cancel it, I assumed I'd forgotten when I actually hadn't. The second year I realised something was up, so did some googling about 123, transferred my other domains and chased it with paypal).

 

Sorry for the hijack Tegs.

[tegan]

I'm just using this to make a portfolio page thing; I think I'd sooner just host with Hover and then do the HTML myself. I'm not a professional, but I've done enough pagebuilding that I think I could do that.

[melmer]

I have heard 123 suck. But i'm all paid up until like 2023 so i'm stuck with them for now. I'll put in as a 'to do/reminder' in my iphone which'll pop up in my iTooth on my 40th birthday. I awake in a cold sweat as a disembodied robot voice from the centre of my skull plays a message from the past "renew your domain old man"

 

I'm just using this to make a portfolio page thing; I think I'd sooner just host with Hover and then do the HTML myself. I'm not a professional, but I've done enough pagebuilding that I think I could do that.

 

Does hover give you a free domain if you use their hosting? that's always a good deal.

 

Edit: I don't think hover do hosting....? i can find anything about it

 

Wordpress is worth playing around with, and can potentially save you a lot of time in the future when you want to add new pictures. You could have one of those templates thrik linked to up and running within an hour and if you don't like it you can just delete it all and start afresh

[Thrik]

I'm just using this to make a portfolio page thing; I think I'd sooner just host with Hover and then do the HTML myself. I'm not a professional, but I've done enough pagebuilding that I think I could do that.

 

You still need web hosting, though. Unless I'm missing something Hover is exclusively a domain registrar; there's nowhere to actually host your files.

[tegan]

Aw, poop. How do I do that?

[Thrik]

That's what my first post addressed really. You need an economical web host, if you were in Europe I'd recommend EuroVPS but you should be able to find comparable North American web hosts. I'm sure somebody from that region has better recommendations than I could give, although considering that it's just for a static HTML website even the bargain basement hosts like Dreamhost and Site5 should be good (also I have heard good things about Site5).

 

Most web hosts let you set up the domain as part of your hosting package, or even offer you a free one. If you choose to keep your domain separate from your web hosting, you just set a couple of fields in your domain admin panel to be some server addresses your web host will give you.

 

A domain is literally just the thing you type into your address bar; everything functional such as hosting, email, etc comes from a web host. A domain is typically paid yearly, whereas web hosting is monthly. I'd say that averages would be $10/year for domains and $5/month for web hosting. You're paying for support when you get web hosting, so they should help you out with anything that seems confusing.

[melmer]

Be wary when you google 'Top ten best web hosts' as all the websites that come back are made by the companies who do the hosting i would know as i made one when i worked at justhost.com lol, its probably still floating around the web. Just Host the #1 best web hosting according to just host

[melmer]

WE NEED HOSTING RECOMMENDATION PEOPLE!

[Justin Leego]

Coolhosting.cool, for all your hosting needs?

[Bjorn]

I use bluehost, but it's pure inertia keeping me there at this point, I have no idea if they are still a good deal compared to their competitors.

[JonCole]

As someone who knows very little about hosting but loves Amazon, maybe Amazon? A fairly ridiculous amount of the internet is hosted on Amazon's AWS and EC2 servers and I know they have a free tier that is pretty good, but I don't know if that's just limited to the US.

[Murdoc]

I used to get hosting, but as other have reiterated, it gets expensive. I was even thinking of going with Square Space since you get something looking pretty pro, but seems pricey.

 

Eventually I went with tumblr and used a theme to convert it less into a blog. It's free and works pretty okay. It's not perfect, but depending on you're needs you can get a free or cheaply priced theme that gets you most of the way of turning it into a gallery for a portfolio.

 

Then I just registered a domain and cloaked it to use the tumblr, I've been using it for a couple years and seems alright for the price.

[syntheticgerbil]

Hosting is like cable bills. They give you some good rate for like 2-3 years and then screw you when it's time to renew. So you have to then threaten them with leaving and if they still can't match it, you then really have to leave and get someone else's promo rate.

 

I'm with Bluehost now, but only because it is cheap. I can't say they are remarkable or anything.

 

Would you be able to make your own site with wysiwyg editors like Micrsoft Frontpage (LONG DEAD!) or Dreamweaver Tegan? I used Dreamweaver for my site because I have no god damn idea what I am doing but it works well enough.

 

Also I've heard Cargo Collective is a great free place to get a portfolio template that a lot of artists have used for portfolio sites (at least 3 years ago). You just have to request to be brought in.