Website Help

[Isaac Arcott]

It occurred to me that some of the members of Thar Shaddin might know a thing or two about creating websites, and may be able to assist me.

My record label is just getting off the ground, and our next order of business is getting a new website. Since I'm the youngest by a decade, the guys at the label seem to think I'm the most qualified to handle all the new age technical stuff, and have put me in charge of setting up the website. Despite my addiction to the internet, I know little of its anatomy, which is why I have turned to you, people of cyberspace, for help.

If you have any tips for starting up a website, I would appreciate them. I know absolutely nothing, so any advice would help. We've tried Blogspot and Proboards before, but they're looking for something a bit more 'official' looking, which will hopefully be able to stream music. They're also hoping it can have some sort of interactive section, which I imagine would end up being a message board, but if there's any other template for an online community, I'd sure like to know.

[Niabi]

I would bug Fruggles for advice/help, he claims it's what he does all day when he can't be here chatting with us.

[Saruna]

I second Frug, man knows his shit.

[Metarie]

Yup, me, too.

I'm pretty sure he knows how to set up an e-commerce back-end as well. Might have to pay him though

[Isaac Arcott]

That's what I figured, but then you'll pelt me with piggies for distracting him from his posts!

[Erryl]

Don't ask Frug for help! He nearly murdered me when I asked! D:

[Metarie]

That's what I figured, but then you'll pelt me with piggies for distracting him from his posts!

Hm. Well, there is that. But, would you be so opposed to being pelted with postie piggie plushies?

[Niabi]

Cute. Alley thinks that piggy is doing the potty dance.

[Frug]

You can get a 1-click setup for an (ugly default) online store using dreamhost.

It's the best 1-click install i've found for e-commerce. Most hosts offer oscommerce which is the older even shittier version of zencart. The default zencart installation is ugly as sin but it works. You can download themes for it and install them following the documentation on the zencart homepage (takes some reading).

Sign up at http://www.dreamhost.com and find the place to enter a promo-code during your sign up. Use the promo-code CYCLICAL and you will get domain registration for 2 domains free (you save $10 per domain using me as a referrer).

Once you have your dreamhost account and if you hate zencart (i hate it but it works) you can install opencart (google it). It is easy to install, requires that you create a database (easy to do with dreamhost) download the files, upload them to the server, click 'continue' three times and it's installed. It is much prettier and better in every way.

Dreamhost has good prices for hosting, and even if you save $1 a month with a cheaper host, you will have to deal with their terrible control panels and shitty support. Dreamhost has the best support, and the best control panel i've seen.

There is a small additional monthly fee for secure hosting (SSL encryption) that you should pay for online stores. I believe it's $5 a month for that, and the hosting itself is $9 a month.

Alternatively you can use paypal for everything and not even bother to set up an online store. Go to paypal, create an account, make your account a 'business account' and it will give you some options to add products to sell. It's free, they charge a % of sales.
They then give you some code to add a button to your website to purchase the product.