I posted a question similar to this in the past and can't find the post now. Plus, I decided to repost anyway since there may be new website members with input on this.

I'm interested in beginning my own website to document my modelling. Armorama will still be home so to speak but the personal website would be a location to consolidate everything I do. My intent is to do the intial work on my website then submit it for publication on Armorama. Some things, like build logs would run concurrently on both my personal site and armorama. Am I making any sense?

So, my questions is this.......Where do I start? Do I need a program? Should I just use something like "Go Daddy.com"?

Who here is doing something similar and have words of wisdom to offer?

I have zero HTML knowledge. I basically need something that I plug resized images and text into with minimal code manipulation. For the record, I don't have any problems using the IMG, URL, etc. tags here on Armorama.

What I'm aiming for is something similar to Bill Plunks (Armorama's very own wbill76) site.

http://www.bpmodels.net/

I don't want to do exactly what he is doing though.

Thanks for your time.

Hi Brent,

I'm not sure if you have a GMail account, but if you do you are already entitled to some free web space thanks to Google. They've also got some simple, easy to use tools for building your site.

Your alternative is to run a Blog for posting your modelling stuff. That's what I do: Tarok's Tales

HTH

Rudi

Thanks for your reply Rudi. You have a typing error in your link. "Properties" shows your link starting with "hhttp" which makes the link unuseable.

I will check out the gmail information that you have provided.

Thanks for your time.

Thanks, and fixed

I use 110mb for my site (click my "www" button). It's free, easy to set up, and expandable as far as the web-eye can see.

I hope I've helped.

Cuhail

hi Brent! having a Multiply account works fine for me. i have some builds posted there. it's easy to put captions, an rename the photos. fast uploads too. you can visit http://www.zekester.multiply.com and see if it'll suit your needs

Brent,

The best advice you can likely find is “get the right tool for the job”. Naturally it depend on you plans and goals for the web site as well as you computer skills.

For posting articles, build blogs and this kind of stuff, I would suggest some of the existing “blogging” servers out there (already mentioned blogspot.com is nice, I personally like wordpress.com better). All of them are very similar in terms of functionality – you don’t have to set up anything (just register, pick the name and look to start with), you don’t have to write any HTML unless you really want to. It’s basically personal website out of the box. And it’s likely for free with an option (usually) for a paid upgrade to stop ads, gain more configuration options or space or other perks like that. Base on what you have said, I believe this would be probably the best option for you at this moment.

Getting yourself a hosting and eventually also your own domain is another can of worms. There is more computer related work involved on you side. You will likely end up installing some of the available software to get you up and running the way you want it (blog or some content management solution, maybe a forum application and such). Hosting gives you more options if you plan to do something custom (more from the functionality perspective then from the “look” stand point) where some coding or scripting may be needed. Also, you will need to check what’s actually included (how much space, what scripting language if needed, what database if needed).

You may consider “start small” option. For instance the wordpress.com, I’ve mentioned, runs their own open-source blogging software you can eventually download & deploy (for free) onto you hosting site (assuming that the hosting provides all the “plumbing” required – scripting support and database). As result you may start with a blog on their site and later transfer the content to your own domain if you will feel a need for it. As far as I know pretty much all blogging solutions offer import functionality from the other major ones.

HTH

-A-