not too sure about the GIF problem you’re having, though it might be because you have two copies trying to load in the same “space” on the page – I did that once and it caused my a few headaches…
Here is a “site” that I made for a class this semester. The idea for the site was to help out beginners who aren’t too familiar with painting, soldering, or MRR in general… I will admit that the site is far from complete (which wasn’t a requirement for the assignment) and has a much higher text to pics ratio that is usually a good idea… but even with its failings I think it helps a little bit. It also links to some really good websites for beginners to MRR.
At the very least, I think it’ll help show some design features that should probably be addressed as well for website content…
Since everyone else has pretty much chipped in here, I might as well drop in my [2c] worth:
As you can see from the link in my signature, I use a (free!) hosting service at www.freeweb7.com. They have very generous web space (8GB, with 110GB/mo. download bandwidth), no banner ads or popups required. They do have basic design templates and assistance, but nothing fancy (hey, it’s free - whaddya expect?), and they seem to be fairly reliable in uptime. Many of the “free” services are poorly-supported for the bottom-end users, so this one is a nice exception. They were down for a week in Feb., but they let everyone know that they were moving all their servers to a new location, so that was very understandable.
Once you have the host you’ll need to design a site. That’s the part that take patience, and some work. There are a bunch of FREE web design software programs out there. Assuming you know HTML coding (at least the basics), I’ve found Arachnophilia to be a good HTML authoring and editing program. (If you are running Linux, try Bluefish.) Otherwise, you can design a site in Word or OpenOffice (the latter is FREE), or any of several word processing/publishing programs. For the real neophyte at web design (and everyone is/was, at some point) there are the many WYSIWG (“What You See Is What You Get”) programs that let you “drag and drop” your pictures, text, links, etc.
Oh, did I mention? I like FREE! [:D]
All this sounds intimidating, I know. It certainly intimidated me at first (and still does, sometimes), but with patience, and testing (and TESTING), you can learn it. Go for it! And be sure to let us know what the URL is, so we can visit!
So far there have been a lot of suggestions on what webhost you can use and example on what software to use.
I think that the big issue is what you should put on the webpages, how to make them interesting to read and nice to look at. At least this is the main problem for me.
By the way, there is one webhost noone havse mentioned so far - your own computer. If you (like me) have a DSL connection and the computer switched on all the times you can host your webpages on your own computer. There are som steps to take before it’s set up but it’s not very difficult.
Correction. Joe write about what to put on the website. Good content Joe!
Thanks guys. lucked out on the webspace too (university provides it). I’ve seen a lot of other good suggestions here too (and have actually looked some of them up)
Looks like railroadnut has a good listing of what to look for and to avoid when purchasing a domain name.
nof – while a good idea, most US ISPs prohibit creating a webserver in a residential setting (ie if you’re only paying for “residential” access you can’t host websites there). Also, they generally block the outbound port 80 (HTTP/web – this is the port used by webservers to send out information)
As a professional web developer, I have very definite ideas on how to best populate your layout website with content. For those who missed the link, you can click here to read it.