Making your own website.

[Azzure_7]

Just out of curiosity.
Do we have to subscribe to anything to do your own website.
Is it something like flickr or photobucket to do this?
Just want to try something new on my free time. Thought this might become an enjoyable hobbie. . .

[BillsBayou]

I'm confused as to what you're asking. Your use of the word "subscribe" has me scratching my head.

Do you want your own domain named website for showcasing your photos? Like www.azzure7.com?

Do you want any old web page out there to show off photos? Yahoo.com let's you do that. It'd be something like www.yahoo.com/azzure_7/

Do you just want a photo hosting site? Use Smugmug.com. You can get a discount using my coupon code: UuN1kUWDVWsyM

[michaelgreen78]

I think it may depend on what sort of a website you want. I started playing around with Netobjects' Fusion 8 software long before getting webspace and publishing anything to the internet and I learned quite alot about web building from doing that. Have recently started using Dreamweaver though with Porta's Simpleviewer software for the galleries. I have webspace with 1and1 which costs a few quid a month. The 2 websites in my sig are of different ilk - eastrycricketclub.com is built with netobjects fusion 8 and mikegreenphotography.co.uk is built with dreamweaver and porta. I did both in my free time and it is good fun once you've got the hang of things.:)

[DimensionZero]

yeah, it all depends what route you want to go...
BillsBayou has pretty much covered the options.

If you want your own domain name and a website of your own you will need to purchase a domain and find someone to host it. This is generally pretty cheap. Most places start at around $8 per month and will include domain registration, email addresses, etc.

With something like the Yahoo or Googlepages option, you'll just need to sign up on their websites. There won't be any fees, but you won't have a personal domain name and such.

With just a simple gallery, you can go a number of routes, you have smugmug like BillsBayou mentioned, you have pbase, or flickr even... But again, no personal domain, email, etc.

If you're REALLY tech savvy, then you would have already know this stuff, but your other option is to run a server on your own home connection. There are a number of limitations here like having a dedicated server, configuring and managing everything on your own, etc. But then there's no monthly cost on top of a domain name, and your internet connection. For example, my sites are run off my cable connection here at home. It's not the greatest, but it serves my purposes for now.

[superdiver]

I got a domain name from godaddy and use a pro account from smugmug...works great...both cost a small amount of money, but you can go even cheeper if you want...

What exactly are you looking for?

[BillsBayou]

... snip ...

If you're REALLY tech savvy, then you would have already know this stuff, but your other option is to run a server on your own home connection. There are a number of limitations here like having a dedicated server, configuring and managing everything on your own, etc. But then there's no monthly cost on top of a domain name, and your internet connection. For example, my sites are run off my cable connection here at home. It's not the greatest, but it serves my purposes for now.

I wonder how much traffic you can handle before your ISP starts to notice you're doing this.

Before anyone starts to do this on their own, there are several things you must consider:

Many ISPs frown on you doing this. It may even be in your contract that you are not allowed to do this under penalty of cancellation of service.
Upload speeds are often throttled way back for home users. You can download videos at blazing speeds, but upload speeds are 1/10th of that or lower. Your web site will appear to be slow to any ONE person viewing it. Any TWO (or more) viewers at a time and it's painfully slow.
For a domain to operate properly, your machine must have a static IP address. You cannot count on your home PC to have the same ISP each time you turn it on. As soon as you ask your ISP for a static IP they'll know you're running a web server. They might have a service for you and then again, they might remind you that you're not allowed to run web servers off of their connection.
As DimensionZero mentioned, running a web server from home requires a significant hardware investment on your part. You CAN do it with a regular Windows XP machine, but I don't know what the load issues are if you have a popular website getting a thousand hits or more per minute. You'll want this machine to be running all by it's lonesome. If your daughter wants to play her favorite "Dora the Explorer" game, you DO NOT want her doing this on your web server. The server PC is for your site and little else. You'll want a good UPS to keep your machine running at all times. Home power systems are prone to outtages. You'll most likely want to have a dedicated ISP connection for your web site. That's as simple (and costly) as having your Phone or Cable provider giving you an extra line. Otherwise, you're husband/wife/kids will be downloading American Idol videos off of YouTube at the same time that dozens of people are trying to view your web site. That means you'll need a good home networking hub. You'll need to maintain all of this equipment at the one and only site it can exist. You will not have a disaster recovery site. You will not be able to go on extended trips. You will not have any employees who can keep the site up in your absence.It CAN be done if that's what you're willing to do.

[cylentka]

FWIW - JAlbum is free photoalbum software that is very cool and lets you configure if you want to. But you have to have a domain set up to use it. JAlbum has "one click" uploading via FTP which makes it all very easy.

[DimensionZero]

Yeah, BillsBayou covers some really good points.

Since my sites are mainly for friends and family, there's not much load on the connection at any time unless I'm downloading TV shows late at night, etc.

Shaw allows me 60GB of traffic each month which I rarely hit and while my IP is dynamic, it only changes about once or twice a year so when it does, I just need to login and update the IP address on my domains to reflect it.

As an example, my server is just an old computer (I forget the speed now even. Pentium something or other...) with 512mb ram running Linux. I use it for my email, websites, and local fileserver for computer backups.

In any case, running your own server does require a lot of time on your end, but for me I enjoy it :) Some day it'll all get moved off to a proper co-location or web-host but until then, everything's been running pretty well for me.

You can get an idea of speeds from looking at my blog and the personal gallery linked off of it. Not the greatest at times but it serves it's purpose. lol

[bieber]

If you want to build websites, learn HTML or XHTML and CSS, along with a healthy dose of graphic design. It takes a little while to get the hang of, but it's none too difficult if you do it right, and makes for some nice money (I did this (http://teamcoupland.com) as a job, and this (http://ff-lobotomy.com) for a friend)

[DarrenL]

I built mine from scratch and I knew nothing about web design.

I used a template and then changed it to fit me.

Darren