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newfieval

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could anyone recommend a user friendly free web site host service or one with a moderate fee that i could use to design a site to promote my novels?
 

Christine N.

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I use freewebs. You can start out with the freebie site, develop your site and get a feel for stuff. It's WYSISYG, so it's very user friendly. But the free site only allows seven pages. Their premium services aren't expensive, and if you buy any one of the Premium services, you get bumped up to unlimited pages. I bought my domain name through them, at $17/year for two years, and that's all it took.

They have nice templates and you can do add-ons, like a blog or a chatroom.

You can look at it here: www.christine-norris.com
Freewebs main page is here: www.freewebs.com
 

Fahim

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newfieval said:
could anyone recommend a user friendly free web site host service or one with a moderate fee that i could use to design a site to promote my novels?

Personally, I would say don't go with a site designer (as in software - not a live person :p) but do the design yourself in a WYSIWYG editor and host your own site ... but that's just me. There are quite a few good WYSIWYG HTML editors out there and if you want, I'll be happy to provide you with a few links. This way, you have full control over your contents and can tweak it in any fashion. You can register a domain name for around $8-$9 at GoDaddy.com (or a few others of your choice) and you should be able to find hosting at about $5 a month or less. Again, if you need any help in finding something, lemme know and I'll be happy to help :)
 

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I used GoDaddy for hosting, and some template-driven software for creating my site, and I hate it. I like my content, but not the design. It's so limiting. I took a class in HTML years ago, but forgot most of it and didn't want to take the time to relearn. Shame on me.
 

Fahim

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I don't know how GoDaddy is for hosting - the last time I looked, they were a bit more expensive than most of the others. For registering your domain, they are OK and fairly cheap too :) Going with somebody else's design (or a site builder kind of app) almost always limits you ... which is why I prefer doing the design and the hosting on my own. At least, I can't blame anybody else for how bad my site looks :p
 

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GoodWord: I like your site - it's easy on the eyes and very well done. I also use GoDaddy for hosting/domain/blogging and agree regarding the page limitations. In my opinion the best all around hoster is Homestead, but they priced themselves out of my reach. With Homestead I could work on my pages offline, then upload only the needed parts. I will continue to seek a better option - I know they are out there. I see you use Website Complete. I use Website Tonight and it does not offer offline composition unless I use FrontPage or some other mental taxing program. But, as posted in gratitude on my homepage, I am most pleased with the rapid support offered by GoDaddy. They have been most helpful to me since the first call to them. At my advanced age and fading mental ability I truly need all the help I can get when it comes to webpages.
 

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dlcharles said:
In my opinion the best all around hoster is Homestead, but they priced themselves out of my reach. With Homestead I could work on my pages offline, then upload only the needed parts. I will continue to seek a better option - I know they are out there.

dlcharles, what are your requirements for a good host? Just asking because I might be able to help you find one :) I know that requirements vary for each person - some people want good support, others want certain tools, others want bandwidth etc. Me, I just want a stable and reliable host who responds promptly when I do have something to be sorted out but I tend to do most stuff myself and so I usually look at price, disk space and bandwidth first ...
 

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Fahim said:
dlcharles, what are your requirements for a good host?

Actually, I have absolutely no idea! I originally began my journey using Geocities, then I believe it was Tripod, next came a few others along the way, until I stumbled across Homestead. I even managed to learn some html somewhere in all that. Homestead offered a CD with its program or a download, with both being excellent to work with. Graphics, great color schemes, moving things, all the bells and whistles which were fun to play with and looked nice. But the price kept going up, like most of them do.

With the GoDaddy site I use now I have less of those things, but it does give me a pretty good "writers format" for my present needs. In all honesty, the major problem I have is my inexperience with web design and my lack of interest in desiring to go back twenty years to pick it up again. In the most simple terms I desire an eye-pleasing, easily readable, user friendly series of pages and blogs. I am presently unable to perform same page linking and do miss it. Am I explaining this correctly?
 

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dlcharles said:
In the most simple terms I desire an eye-pleasing, easily readable, user friendly series of pages and blogs. I am presently unable to perform same page linking and do miss it. Am I explaining this correctly?

It does make sense though I'm not certain I know what you want in concrete terms :p I'm a bit confused by you saying "I am presently unable to perform same page linking and do miss it" though. Probably because I'm unfamiliar with how GoDaddy allows you to set up pages. Is it some sort of sitebuilder where you can create links and stuff and so you are unable to link to the same page using this site builder?

If you are comfortable with a site builder type of app, then I guess it's a matter of finding one which has the exact features you want. If you wouldn't mind going the more adventurous route of doing at least some of the stuff yourself, you might want to consider a CMS (Content Management System). There are a lot of different CMSes to choose from out there and quite a lot of them are free. They offer a variety of templates to choose from and so, you can select a look and feel that you are happy with. The bad thing about a CMS is that all the pages tend to look a lot alike :p
 

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Fahim: Correct -you know, "Top Of Page" link or linking on the page to another spot on the same page. As a self-proclaimed old geezer writer I find my eyes are not as quick to pick up different shades as they once were. Add to this the glow from a computer lamp near me and type tends to fade into the background or become blurry after reading for no more than a few minutes. When I go to different web sites on the Internet the most troublesome to me are the strobe-like effects everyone seems to want on the pages (youth oriented, I suppose), but movies and television shows are also into strobing and "Matrix" special effects which the older generation has trouble with.

As a writer I want my online readers to have no glare from the page, for the type to stand out clearly without being garish, and to "feel welcoming" to them and make them comfortable with the reading. Words are powerful tools which can effect a thought process in another person who reads those words. I want the 'page' upon which those words reside to be a compliment to the words, not the other way around. Since my contract with my hoster is until next January the point is basically moot. It behooves me to work with the limitations until I am knowledgeable enough to achieve the results I desire. I appreciate your input and your ability. Thanks. Oh, and I just added you to my personal favorites AW folder. Thanks again.

BTW, did anyone mention you could be on "LOST"?
 

Fahim

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I totally agree with you about the words being the most important thing on a web page and the design being, so to speak, a setting for the jewels which are the words :) If you do need any assistance with any of your web stuff, drop me a PM - I might be able to help. I do this stuff day in and day out anyway when I should really be writing :p

dlcharles said:
BTW, did anyone mention you could be on "LOST"?

Are you offering me a part? :p
 

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Thanks for the kind words, dlcharles. If I could find some decent clip art I'd be a little happier. Need to ditch the keyboard, which was simply the default in the template. Anyone know of a good place I could go to for some bookish or mountainous stuff?
 

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Simply type "free clip art" into your search engine - and stand back. I looked at several sites which appeared to possibly fit what you want concerning mountainous scenes.
 

Christine N.

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dlcharles said:
Fahim: Correct -you know, "Top Of Page" link or linking on the page to another spot on the same page.

thanks for mentioning this - I just played around with my site and found how this works. Woot for me! Now I look like a real web page :) You can skip around and go back to top of the page. Cool! I didn't realize Freewebs had this capability until yesterday.
 

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dlcharles said:

LOL. That's hacker slang which seems to be creeping into general usage :p There are claims that this is actually a subverted form of "root" - which is the highest level of access on a server. So when hackers gain root access, they are supposed to yell out "w00t" :) The 00s for "oo"s is again hacker l33t (or leet) speak where you replace certain letters of the alphabet with numbers which look like the letters. Yeah, weird stuff :p

Oh yeah, it's supposed to mean something like "yay!" or "great!" :)
 

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That, Fahim, is one of the drawbacks of being old. Words and meanings develop faster than my age group can absorb them. To my generation a 'hacker' usually meant someone suffering from tuberculosis, the same as a 'lunger'. Of course back then 'coke' meant Coca-Cola and 'sniffing' was something we did when we had a cold. It is amazing to me when I study on different words used nowdays and relate their meanings to my generation - and often very very humorous.
 

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I must be an in-between because it took me a couple of seconds to think what else "coke" might be if it wasn't Coca-Cola :p But some of the terms you mentioned are kind of funny in today's context :) Of course, "hacker" itself will generate so much debate about inexact usage - I'm just waiting for somebody to jump down my throat and say it should be "cracker" and not "hacker" :p Language, she is a funny, evolving thing :)
 

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"Back when a coke was a Coke....a ho was a hoe....and Crack's what you were doin', when you were crackin' jokes.

Back when a Screw was a screw, the wind was all that blew... and when you said 'I'm down with that', well it meant you had the flu.. I miss back when."

I forget who sings that song. But yep, W00T is another 'Yay'.
 
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