Free online class on beginning website building

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Permalink Reply by Wendy S on July 5, 2009 at 12:43pm

Jordan --

That is a great idea for those of us who would like a little guidance. I for one would like to do my own to save money -- please emphasize web hosting sites -- good and economical -- vs. easy to use, but you don't own your website (due to inexperience this happened to me through hostway.com -- I have since canceled all my services with them --- but also spent a lot of money for nothing. . . good learning experience.).

Please record this class and have available as a podcast re-play encase some (myself included) may be working at the time of the class.

Thanks in advance for your service!!

Wendy

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Permalink Reply by Kelly Harbaugh on July 6, 2009 at 8:23am

Thanks for offering your experitse! I know I would be interested in a few topics:

-I am artistically challenged so some basic visual/graphic do's and don'ts would be helpful
-HTML 101 for those of us who are using a block by block builder but like to add a "few" custom features
-eBooks, definitely!

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Permalink Reply by Bonnie Freeh on July 8, 2009 at 4:06am

I'd love to participate. My goal is to build a simple, content only website using my Mac. I struggle with HTML, but haven't spent much time trying to learn it. I've heard others mention that Moonfruit is a good free basic website development program.

Thank you for your willingness to help others!
Bonnie
1 Peter 4:10

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Permalink Reply by Sharon on July 8, 2009 at 10:37am

I'd also be interested. Having this available not-live would be great. I have never participated in a live online class and so would not know how to do it. Or have an article explaining in laymans terms how to participate.

I'm in agreement with Kelly on the visual graphics, where to get a decent header is what I've been considering lately. I don't like my look on my site but not sure how to fix it. I don't have more funds to spend at this point.

I am assuming you would want to charge for a class like this. Maybe you could have it available afterwards for a lower rate than actually participating and getting direct feedback? Again funds is the issue with me. Sorry, but it is what it is.

thanks
Sharon

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Permalink Reply by Mike Good on July 10, 2009 at 2:25pm

I'd be interested - particularly if you covered topics related to Search Engine Optimization and also some basics on CSS. Keep me in the loop.

Thanks...great idea.

Mike

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Permalink Reply by Larry Morrison on July 11, 2009 at 6:49pm

Bonnie, I'm currently wading through building a new site using Rapid Weaver- a program for Macs. It cost $79 and has lots of themes for custom looks. It's not as easy as they make it sound (software never is) but I'm slowly learning. Depending on what you want to do, you might want to consider Wordpress. People think of Wordpress as purely a blog program, but it can do almost everything any website can, and again has lots of theme to choose from, and I think it's pretty easy to use. Wordpress is also free- but there are some third party outfits selling themes for it that can cost up to $70- like www.woothemes.com/themes .

Bonnie Freeh said:

I'd love to participate. My goal is to build a simple, content only website using my Mac. I struggle with HTML, but haven't spent much time trying to learn it. I've heard others mention that Moonfruit is a good free basic website development program.

Thank you for your willingness to help others!
Bonnie
1 Peter 4:10

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Schatz on July 12, 2009 at 12:49pm

I am excited about the class, it will be the first time that I have taught an
online class in this way, so hopefully the technology works well for us. I have
been testing out a few online services, and I think the best one is webhuddle
https://www.webhuddle.com/ The way it will work is that I will be able to show
you my desktop, and speak to the class by my microphone, and you will be able to
ask questions by an integrated chat window.

I think that we wont be able to cover all that we want to in an hour to an hour
and a half, so if we like the class, I will plan on making it an ongoing thing.
The best time for me is a Saturday early evening/late afternoon,
sometime between 5pm-7pm. What works best for you'all?

I will try and record the class(es) for latter download, but in my tests
recordings didn't work well. I will probably make a tutorial video, based on
what was covered in the class, if the recording doesn't go well.

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Schatz on July 12, 2009 at 1:18pm

Here is the outline for the first class, I am planning to cover as much as we can in an hour, and then have a half hour for questions.

Basics of Domains, DNS, and "Pointing" Youd Domain at your WebHost
What is a domain name?
How to select your domain name.
Where to register your domain name.

Web Hosting Services
What Do You Need? / Planning for the Long Term
Building Your Site From Skratch Vrs. a Standard CMS/Framework Vrs. WYSIWYG Webhosts like Moonfruit, homestead, etc.
Choosing your webhost.


Tools
WYSIWYG HTML Editors.
NVU
SeaMonkey
Amaya
Text Editors
Scite
Graphic Design
Inkscape
Gimp
Debuging and Learning Tools
Firebug

Basics of HTML
What is HTML?
What is the difference between HTML 1, 2, 4, and XHTML and which should I use?
Lets make a html page from skratch.

Referances
HTML Colors
HTML Tags Reference
HTML Charactor Referance
CSS Referance
Common Web Fonts
Color Scheme / Color Pallette Tools
Usefull websites
Hypergurl
Sitepoint
w3schools

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Schatz on July 12, 2009 at 1:26pm

Links and Resources for the class.
You might enjoy checking out a few of the links, and downloading/installing/testing out some of the programs listed. They are all free. If we get to the HTML section, you will probably want a programers text editor to follow along. For windows users Notepad will work, I think Mac has a program called SimpleEdit and Linux users will probably have either Gedit or Kate installed. For the classes I will use Scite, since it is small, simple, works on Mac/Win/Linux, and has features like syntax highlighting, and line numbering. There is a link to Scite (which is free) if you wan to have exactly what I use in the class.

Scite
http://www.scintilla.org/SciTEDownload.html

Good Free Web Hosting
http://www.110mb.com

Color in Nature, 18 Butterflies
http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/06/01/colorful-beauty-in-natu...

Color Palette Generator from you image
http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/

Common Web Fonts
http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

Google Analytics
http://www.google.com/analytics/

Regestering your domain name
http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/registerdomain.shtml
Register.com
http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/click?id=fKk4zA/cK*0&offerid=162459.10004950&type=3&subid=0
GoDaddy
http://www.anrdoezrs.net/4q65lnwtnvAGEBFKEACBEJJEGJ
Dotster
http://www.jdoqocy.com/rm72shqnhp4A859E84A69CEB

HTML Colors
http://www.creativeuplink.com/htmlbgcolors.png

Character Entity Referance
http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com/characterentities_famsupp_69.html

HTML Tags Referance
http://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp

Reference
http://www.hypergurl.com/

Firebug
http://getfirebug.com/

Amaya
http://www.w3.org/Amaya/

SeaMonkey
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

CSS Zen Garden
http://www.csszengarden.com/

Inkscape
http://www.inkscape.org/

Gimp
http://www.gimp.org/

Referance
http://www.sitepoint.com/

CSS Referance
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_reference.asp

Learn CSS
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Learn HTML
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

NVU
http://net2.com/nvu/

WebHuddle
https://www.webhuddle.com/

SquareSpace.com
http://www.squarespace.com/

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Schatz on July 12, 2009 at 3:00pm

Mike Good said:

I'd be interested - particularly if you covered topics related to Search Engine Optimization and also some basics on CSS. Keep me in the loop.

Thanks...great idea.

Mike

We won't get to CSS or SEO in the first session, but I definitely want to. I love CSS. You might like having a look at http://www.csszengarden.com/ it is a beautiful example of CSS, and a good learning challenge

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Permalink Reply by Bonnie Freeh on July 12, 2009 at 7:08pm

Thanks Larry! I opened an account for WordPress, but haven't done much with it.

Larry Morrison said:

Bonnie, I'm currently wading through building a new site using Rapid Weaver- a program for Macs. It cost $79 and has lots of themes for custom looks. It's not as easy as they make it sound (software never is) but I'm slowly learning. Depending on what you want to do, you might want to consider Wordpress. People think of Wordpress as purely a blog program, but it can do almost everything any website can, and again has lots of theme to choose from, and I think it's pretty easy to use. Wordpress is also free- but there are some third party outfits selling themes for it that can cost up to $70- like www.woothemes.com/themes .

Bonnie Freeh said:

I'd love to participate. My goal is to build a simple, content only website using my Mac. I struggle with HTML, but haven't spent much time trying to learn it. I've heard others mention that Moonfruit is a good free basic website development program.

Thank you for your willingness to help others!
Bonnie
1 Peter 4:10

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Permalink Reply by Jordan Schatz on July 17, 2009 at 2:57pm

Hello All,

I have had a look at the available technologies, and it looks like webhuddle
https://www.webhuddle.com/ is going to be the best option for the class. We will
start at 6pm MDT tomorrow, Saturday Jul 18. I will post a link in the forums,
and email those of you whose email addresses I have. The link expires so I will
post it half an hour to an hour before the class starts. You will just need to
click on the link, and it will take you to webhuddle, there should be no
signup/setup, and it should work on any computer, and with a pretty minimal internet
connections. I will be able to video stream my desktop, and audio, and we will
have bi-directional communication via an integrated chat.

If you have any trouble with it, my email address is:
SmallBusinessSense @ gmail.com

Hope to see you all there!

Jordan

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