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Need help with new site

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ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	Need help with new site - 11/29/2006 16:48:34 Hey, y’all! I’m new to the forum. I must say that I’m not an experienced web developer, but I’m not a total newbie, either. The questions I have would probably need to be answered by someone with a good bit of experience, so I thought I would post here. Background: I am in charge of completely updating a website where I work. We’ve hired a web designer and she will be working on it soon. She’s actually a graphics designer, but has created several websites, I have experience working with her, and she does beautiful work. Since we are doing a total revamp of the site, I want it built correctly from the start. Since my web designer is not a programmer of sorts, I wanted to get some opinions from those who are. I have never developed a website with anything except FrontPage (and that was an older version). I have read a book on php and xml and some articles on mysql, so I know just enough to be dangerous. I was contacted by a web designer that seems to be up on all the latest and greatest technology. He made a few suggestions, but I’m not sure if we need everything he suggested, so I wanted to get your opinion. The type of advertising we are doing is not something that people will be searching for on the web, therefore, Google ranking is not a priority. We have a simple site and some of our visitors will be dial-up since they live out in the sticks and can't get dsl or cable. Questions: The designer suggested the following: 1. Build the site using appropriate web standards (Cascading Style Sheets) – no table layouts, etc. Is this completely necessary? My web designer uses tables in Dreamweaver. 2. Ensure that your pages are developed with the appropriate page extension/server technology from the start (ex. ASP, ASPX, PHP, etc). We currently have everything as an ASP extension, but he suggested that ASP was antiquated and that we needed to use something else. Is this a major concern? What should I use? His reasoning on making sure that we start off with one technology is below: a. This will drastically affect your Google listing if you have to go back later and change page filename b. If external sites link to your site and you eventually change the page names, their links will be broken, thus affecting your Google ranking. 3. If you’re going to stay with your current server platform your pages should be developed using ASP.NET Master Pages. This is the evolution of the include file, but with the ability to actually perform like a page all to itself. It is one of the most powerful aspects of the new .NET platform. My Objective We currently have no need for anything other than html. However, I would like to change that. I would like to create the following items: 1. A contact form that, when submitted, sends an email to our admin assistant as well as another person depending on the information given. I would also like the information to go into a database for email newsletters. I would also like to use the database for postal mail. That way we can do a mail merge in Word using the database. 2. Is there software that I can use to send the email newsletters using the database created above? I’d like for it to be a confirmed opt-in newsletter. I’ve used a service before (www.mailermailer.com), but never a software program that would do this for me. 3. I’d like to have a login portion of the site so that my colleagues can post items for everyone to use such as graphics, reports, etc. I saw that Spooky Login would probably do what I need for this portion. I would only want my colleagues to be able to login, but I would like for them to be able to select their own password. Can Spooky do that for me? I know this is a long posting. If you’ve read this far, thank you very much for your patience!!!!


Reflect Posts: 4769 From: USA Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/29/2006 17:40:09 Well I'll take a crack... 1) Yes and no. Moving forward CSS tableless design is the way to go. Will it be negative to use tables for layout? Depends on how long until the next redesign. Currently no. 2) He/she is correct. ASP is on the way out. Is it a dead language yet....no. 2a) You stated you couldn't care less about SERPs (Search engine results page). If this is true then I would not be overly concerend. However I do concure with what he/she stated. 2b) Again...yes and no. If other sites link to http://www.whateveryourdomainis.com then it is illrelevant. However most people link to lower level pages or "deep link". So if the page name changes then the external link to your sites deeper page would be broken. 3) Who says you have to use ASP.Net? I will assume wthis was thrown out there as you are "hosted" on a Widnows servers. People need tyo open their minds to other languages that will run on Windows servers. PHP comes right to mind but that is just a personal opinion. "My Objective ": 1) Well now you are hinting at running a database. If that is the case I would do a little leg work if I were you. What kind of server is your site hosted on? What languages does the host allow you to run? What DBs will the host allow/support? All this can be fleshed out with your host. From those answers the DB choice will most likely be made for you. 2) I would recomend using a third party "list server". Tom (This boards owner) just went down this path so I am sure he can chime in with who works the best and why. 3) The Spookster can do most anything (shameless plug ). He gave me a copy to play with and going from memory yes that is doable. Also he has GREAT support. Tough decisions to be made by you. I think you are going about it logically by making your post here to flesh out things BEFORE diving in. HTH and take care, Brian _____________________________ (in reply to ennisv)


Tailslide Posts: 6368 Joined: 5/10/2005 From: Out here on the raggedy edge Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 2:59:18 I think the advice you've been given by this designer sounds very sensible (barring the fact that as Brian said PHP could also run on Windows servers). _____________________________ Little Blue Plane Web Design \| Land Rover project (in reply to Reflect)


womble Posts: 5721 Joined: 3/14/2005 From: Living on the edge Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 5:00:52 quote: ORIGINAL: ennisv 2. Ensure that your pages are developed with the appropriate page extension/server technology from the start (ex. ASP, ASPX, PHP, etc). We currently have everything as an ASP extension, but he suggested that ASP was antiquated and that we needed to use something else. Is this a major concern? What should I use? His reasoning on making sure that we start off with one technology is below: a. This will drastically affect your Google listing if you have to go back later and change page filename b. If external sites link to your site and you eventually change the page names, their links will be broken, thus affecting your Google ranking. Good advice, but not the end of the world if your page extension does change. You can always use a 301 redirect to your new pages. One thing to look out for though is how your server handles different extensions. I had a site recently that uses php extensions. On all my other sites it's never been a problem, but on this site I recently found out thanks to a friend alerting me that although www.mydomain.com/index.php found the home page okay, just using the domain name and not adding a page, got 401 page not found error message, so if someone just typed my domain name rather than the address of a specific page, it looked as though nothing was there because the server was trying to show an index.html page that's not there. I fixed the problem using a .htaccess 301 redirect redirecting .html extensions to .php. I'd not previously used a refdirect because the site was done with .php file extensions from the start, and it had never been a problem on other sites, but obviously on this site there's something different in the server setup. _____________________________ ~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~ ~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~ (in reply to ennisv)


caz Posts: 3626 Joined: 10/10/2001 From: Somewhere south of Chester, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 5:38:51 Just on php running on a windows server...all the sites that I have on a windows server are php capable. ( thanks to jaybee for posting her test php page because I too was under the impression that it could not be done.) My servers use the Zend scripting language engine with PHP v 5.1.2 - if that means anything to anyone ) The only other thing that I would add is that you have a good opportunity now to move to standards compliant design, which with the upcoming updates to IE would be a very good move for you to ensure that your pages display correctly in all good browsers. You said that you have a graphic designer on board but maybe you should check this out with her; some designers are purely visual with little knowledge of standards based design. Just my 2p. _____________________________ Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will dance, or more on your keyboard. Cheshire cat. www.doracat.co.uk I remember when it took less than 4hrs to fly across the Atlantic. (in reply to womble)


jaybee Posts: 14207 Joined: 10/7/2003 From: Berkshire, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 5:49:57 quote: My servers use the Zend scripting language engine with PHP v 5.1.2 - if that means anything to anyone :)) Yep, it means you're paying more than the rest of us. _____________________________ If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is. GAWDS Now where did I put that Doctype? (in reply to caz)


jaybee Posts: 14207 Joined: 10/7/2003 From: Berkshire, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 5:55:50 Yes, beware the Graphic Designer with no web knowledge. I've just been through a couple of months of hell. If this GD is a reasonable lady talk to her and explain she needs to build some flexibility into her designs so that, for example she is happy with the way it's going to look on a narrowish screen as well as a wide one. You also need to make sure she doesn't make it too complicated. I ended up having to do a load of elongated different coloured rectangles all over the page which displayed slightly differently in all the browsers, and had the client and GD jumping up and down because it was a couple of pixels out in one browser on a different size monitor. GDs can be very precious about their designs. Be warned. _____________________________ If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is. GAWDS Now where did I put that Doctype? (in reply to jaybee)

ennisv

Posts: 13
Joined: 11/29/2006
Status: offline

RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 10:01:20

Wow! I didn't expect this kind of response to my question. Thank you all for responding!

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reflect

3) Who says you have to use ASP.Net? I will assume this was thrown out there as you are "hosted" on a Widnows servers. People need to open their minds to other languages that will run on Windows servers. PHP comes right to mind but that is just a personal opinion.

You are correct. The place where I work actually owns the server and it is Windows. I just spoke with one of our IT guys (wonderful guys, very helpful, but over worked so I hate to bug them too much) and he said that we are moving to a Linux server soon and that I had the option of staying with a Windows server or moving to the Linux server.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reflect
1) Well now you are hinting at running a database. If that is the case I would do a little leg work if I were you. What kind of server is your site hosted on? What languages does the host allow you to run? What DBs will the host allow/support? All this can be fleshed out with your host. From those answers the DB choice will most likely be made for you.

I was told that I could run ASP, ASP.Net, or PHP now and I will be able to run PHP if I want to change servers once the new server gets here. We have a small calendar on the site now and it is an Access database. I would like for it to be something that will mailmerge with Word so that our Administrative Assistant doesn't have to do a lot of work to send out mailings.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reflect
2) I would recomend using a third party "list server". Tom (This boards owner) just went down this path so I am sure he can chime in with who works the best and why.

I would love to hear more about this.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reflect
3) The Spookster can do most anything (shameless plug ). He gave me a copy to play with and going from memory yes that is doable. Also he has GREAT support.

If I were to go with this, we would have to stick with ASP, correct?

quote:

ORIGINAL: womble
You can always use a 301 redirect to your new pages.

Great idea! However, I don't know how to do this.

Do you have a link to a web page that would explain it to me?

(in reply to Reflect)


ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 10:21:43 Update... I just spoke to the graphic designer. She said that she uses a template in Dreamweaver for all of her sites. I have no experience with Dreamweaver; is that their way of creating CSS? (in reply to ennisv)


Reflect Posts: 4769 From: USA Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 10:44:56 quote: If I were to go with this, we would have to stick with ASP, correct?[\quote] Correct. http://spookylogin.com/ Take care, Brian _____________________________ (in reply to ennisv)


Tailslide Posts: 6368 Joined: 5/10/2005 From: Out here on the raggedy edge Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 10:54:59 Dreamweaver is a fancier version of FrontPage (not same manufacturer) - it's a WYSIWYG editor with similar site management tools to FP. You can use DW or FP to create CSS or better yet - just use a HTML editor of which there are loads out there (many of which are free!). _____________________________ Little Blue Plane Web Design \| Land Rover project (in reply to Reflect)


ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 10:59:34 When you enter things into a "template" in Dreamweaver, does it code everything in CSS for you or is the CSS created in a different way? I'm not sure if she's using CSS or if the template is something different...putting everything in tables, for instance. (in reply to Tailslide)


jaybee Posts: 14207 Joined: 10/7/2003 From: Berkshire, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:01:04 quote: ORIGINAL: ennisv Update... I just spoke to the graphic designer. She said that she uses a template in Dreamweaver for all of her sites. I have no experience with Dreamweaver; is that their way of creating CSS? No it's their way of having control over what you do. Basically they set the site up and then hand it over to you to plug content in. It really annoys me I'm afraid. They're basically attempting to lock you out of any decisions on site build and turn you into a copy typist. Now if you're OK with that then fine but what happens when the GD has got the cash and gone and you have to look after it? CSS? Is she using css? Is she using tables? Is she doing it so that it's something you can understand and work with, if not she needs to change what she's doing. This is the exact problem I've just had. The GD uses Dreamweaver. Why? Because he does a page mock up in Photoshop then uses image slice to put it all as graphics into tables. He then opens it up in Dreamweaver, adds hotspots to the graphics and calls it a usable web site. The client thinks he has a good deal. I have to redo the whole lot as there's no page content whatsoever and the client wants to content manage his own site but there's no content on there to manage. Talk to her nicely, explain that you have to look after this. or kick her in the shins. (my preferred option at the moment) _____________________________ If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is. GAWDS Now where did I put that Doctype? (in reply to ennisv)


jaybee Posts: 14207 Joined: 10/7/2003 From: Berkshire, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:04:24 quote: ORIGINAL: ennisv When you enter things into a "template" in Dreamweaver, does it code everything in CSS for you or is the CSS created in a different way? I'm not sure if she's using CSS or if the template is something different...putting everything in tables, for instance. Not necessarily. It entirely depends on how she does it. You need to get all of this clear before she hands it over and preferably before she finishes the layouts. _____________________________ If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is. GAWDS Now where did I put that Doctype? (in reply to ennisv)


caz Posts: 3626 Joined: 10/10/2001 From: Somewhere south of Chester, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:06:14 quote: template in Dreamweaver A template is a template, whatever application you use and can be very restrictive for the future if you decide on changes later down the line. Ask how flexible it is for future needs. Some use CSS and others are purely tables based - you need to know this from her. Has she got a url for her business so that we can have a look at her work? As well as liking the look of Spooky Login (good choice!) you also mentioned that you are using Access databases, so unless you were to consider changing to MySQL, then the runes are pointing to ASP. < Message edited by caz -- 11/30/2006 11:17:56 > _____________________________ Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will dance, or more on your keyboard. Cheshire cat. www.doracat.co.uk I remember when it took less than 4hrs to fly across the Atlantic. (in reply to Tailslide)


ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:19:31 quote: ORIGINAL: caz Has she got a url for her business so that we can have a look at her work? I sent you an email with a link to her home page. She's actually a friend of mine, and I don't want her to get her feelings hurt if she comes across the postings online. (I know it's unlikely, but with my luck...) If anyone else would like to see it, let me know. You'll have to post because my email link from this site doesn't work. When I sent the email to CAZ, I copied myself, but only received an undeliverable message saying "sender address rejected." (in reply to caz)

jaybee

Posts: 14207
Joined: 10/7/2003
From: Berkshire, UK
Status: offline

RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:23:02

quote:

sender address rejected

Spooky has been fixing things, you might like to let him know about that.

quote:

She's actually a friend of mine,

Well in that case kick her in both shins and stamp on her foot.

It's the way GDs work but they have to understand they're dealing with electronic media not the printed page and they need to modify their methods.

As she's a friend try and convert her, we need some tame GDs on our side.

_____________________________

If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is.

GAWDS
Now where did I put that Doctype?

(in reply to ennisv)


ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 11:48:30 quote: ORIGINAL: jaybee It's the way GDs work but they have to understand they're dealing with electronic media not the printed page and they need to modify their methods. As she's a friend try and convert her, we need some tame GDs on our side. I understand completely. I don't think the right part of my brain even works, so it can be frustrating. Then again, without someone like that, my webpage would look like a 4 year old designed it. She does beautiful work, and I don't even know if the clothes I am wearing color coordinate. She's actually married to an engineer, so maybe he will rub off on her... I'd love for her to take some programming classes so she could see both sides of the web design world, but she stays so busy as it is, she doesn't have time for it and she has more work than she can do, so I don't know if she would see the benefit. (in reply to jaybee)


womble Posts: 5721 Joined: 3/14/2005 From: Living on the edge Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 12:29:45 quote: ORIGINAL: ennisv quote: ORIGINAL: womble You can always use a 301 redirect to your new pages. Great idea! However, I don't know how to do this. Do you have a link to a web page that would explain it to me? Yep, click on the highlighted "301 redirects" in my original post - that's a link to a site with info on the various ways of doing it. _____________________________ ~~ "A cruel god ain't no god at all" ~~ ~~ Erase hate. Practice love. ~~ (in reply to ennisv)


ennisv Posts: 13 Joined: 11/29/2006 Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 12:43:25 quote: ORIGINAL: womble Yep, click on the highlighted "301 redirects" in my original post - that's a link to a site with info on the various ways of doing it. Duh. I didn't realize that was a link... Thanks. Can you have a page in ASP that redirects to a PHP page? (If I were to change our current ASP site to a PHP driven site.) I guess I was confused if you can use two technologies in one website/server. So if someone clicked on a link called www.mydomain.com/oldpage.asp, it would redirect to my new page at www.mydomain.com/newpage.php and I would have both ASP and PHP driven pages on one site.... (in reply to womble)


jaybee Posts: 14207 Joined: 10/7/2003 From: Berkshire, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 12:53:36 Yes you can. You can redirect any URL to any other URL the language doesn't matter. If it's a working page that's available to the web then it'll go there. Wombly, try underlining your hyperlinks. _____________________________ If it ain't broke..... fix it until it is. GAWDS Now where did I put that Doctype? (in reply to ennisv)


caz Posts: 3626 Joined: 10/10/2001 From: Somewhere south of Chester, UK Status: offline	RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 13:07:56 Got your email and replied - no probs in the UK, must be that old Spookster playing tricks again. _____________________________ Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will dance, or more on your keyboard. Cheshire cat. www.doracat.co.uk I remember when it took less than 4hrs to fly across the Atlantic. (in reply to jaybee)

rubyaim

Posts: 757
Joined: 6/22/2005
Status: offline

RE: Need help with new site - 11/30/2006 17:05:13

quote:

I guess I was confused if you can use two technologies in one website/server.

Sure you can

I don't use ASP / PHP but do use ASP / CFM and regulary point ASP pages to a CFM page and vice versa.

Also just wanted to plug the Spooky Login - it is excellent.

quote:

We have a small calendar on the site now and it is an Access database. I would like for it to be something that will mailmerge with Word so that our Administrative Assistant doesn't have to do a lot of work to send out mailings.

I agree with Caz that the runes are pointing to ASP on Windows. If you have Office then it all integrates very nicely indeed. I regulary tie in Access / ASP / Excel and Word (or Publisher) for our users.

_____________________________

Sally

(in reply to ennisv)