FOAK - web site design

I need to knock up a couple of websites sharpish - one for a budding
young sports person looking for sponsorship, and another to advertise
chez-Wilson-Normandy-holiday-lets.

I've got the environment[1] to host everything myself, but I'm shit at
designing web pages.

Just some static pages would do for a start, could then move towards
something like Joomla[2] later. What do the foak recommend for a simple
(free) tool, preferably with loads of really nice templates to choose
from? Or just some templates? I've got access to most operating systems.

[1] LAMP
[2] I've seen some nice sites in Joomla, but when I tried to make my own
one it looked like a pig's ear.

TIA

 

You could try Drupal, even though it's PHP-based, it's still rather good -
simple to get to grips with and lots of decent themes and plugins. Static
pages are rather 1997.

No, I don't.

--
TD
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
1993 Eunos Roadster (supercharged)
Could want: something more comfy, sprots or not
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica, Lardy tourer

 

I'll take a look at that, thanks. Blogging would definitely be good for
the first site anyway.

 

For the latter, getting hits on the site is more important than style,
or possibly even content. Get your meta tags right. I've also had a
dabble with Google Adwords because I got some free credit with my
Easyspace account. Hard to say if any of the 'click through' events (and
I got a few) resulted in a booking for this year.

Oh for the days when you could submit your site to Altavista. I managed
to get the old 'Gilera Network' up to first hit on "Gilera" way back in
94.

Are you doing all the administrivia (deposits etc.) for lets yourself or
using an agency?

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

I had a play with Drupal when setting it up on my hosted machine for
another UKRMer and it seems to be rather good. In fact I will probably
move the odd site over to it as well...

@Simon, I think that would meet your requirements including the blog
part.

 

Last time I checked this stuff out, I was told that meta tags were
useless - Google ignores them and only indexes on readable text (you
can't even use tricks like white text on a white background). So getting
the info around through blogs and usenet (hence the many spam posts) is
one of the ways to go. Or I could emply an SEO specialist

Possibly do it ourselves, I doubt we will use an agency. It's looking
like we won't be ready for anyone other than friends/family until next
year anyway.

ps we went via Norfolkline/Dunkerque last weekend. Only 30 quid. The A28
or whatever it is, is a nice road, but ged that was a hell of a long
way. With the tolls (about £60) and diesel (about £120) it was *much*
more expensive than going the LD Lines/Brittany Ferries route.

 

Indeed, there is a basic blog module included in core.
http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/blog

--
TD
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
1993 Eunos Roadster (supercharged)
Could want: something more comfy, sprots or not
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica, Lardy tourer

 

darsy?

 

Plenty of good free Joomla! templates out there and if you want to do your
own later I'll happily give you some help and advice.

 

I know two people who have excellent results from www.holidaylettings.co.uk
.. It's not free but the hit rate and resulting bookings are excellent.
One house in Brugges and another in Devon.

 

In fucking Brugges?

 

Perks. Where in Normandy? Is the email in your headers (with obvious
removed) valid?

 

What do the foak recommend for a simple (free) tool

http://www.strangebanana.com/generator.aspx

 

In between St. Lo and Coutances. Yep, email is valid except for the
obvious.

 

see above.

 

heh

 

gah, or below.

 

I once got wankered with a bar owner of a bar in Anneville-sur-Mer in
Coutancnes. Quite a memorable evening. To cut a long story short, he
was *really* pissed and was driving us back to Anneville where I was
staying. The first thing he did was ram his car in the back of a new
parked BMW, ignore the damage and continued unabashed. He continued to
swerve the <guesses> 15 mile journey back. I am quite a brave passenger
but closed my eyes after the few minutes nonetheless.

 

Ok, so I've got Drupal loaded up at the moment to try it, I can change
themes easily, but now I need a simple way to upload graphics - any
recommendations? That doesn't seem to be standard functionality, I have
to add at least one module.

Ged this is a pain - I tried Wordpress which seemed ok, pretty easy to
add both pictures and text, but could I get any new themes to load? No I
flippin' couldn't.

 

As a base, I'd install:
http://drupal.org/project/admin_menu
http://drupal.org/project/wysiwyg (with either FCKEditor or TinyMCE)
http://drupal.org/project/img_assist or IMCE

Or similar. HTH.

Wordpress is Mickey Mouse in comparison (JMO).

--
TD
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
1993 Eunos Roadster (supercharged)
Could want: something more comfy, sprots or not
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica, Lardy tourer