I have just started learning HTML using Ian Lloyds book, ‘Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way’
Armed with this knowledge, I am building my first website for a charity and it all seems to be working, even Ians suggestion to seamlessly integrate a Blog into the Latest News Section - allowing any member to contribute news worthy content just by logging in to Blogger dot com and typing their article.
Well, the site was about to go live, the members are excited about the Blogger aspect and now, lo and behold, I get an e-mail from Blogger saying they are stopping all ftp because its not cost effective for Google to offer the service. So I am in need of some urgent inspiration!
Blogger is now offering Custom Domains? My problem is, how on earth do I integrate one of these into the site? Will i be able to style it so it seems like part of the website and not a separate blogging site?
Its probably all straight forward but i dont understand it and having just got to grips with the basic website fundamentals, I don’t want to start playing around with Custom Domains and mucking things up if better alternatives exist - I think that a sub-domain costs me money too…
If you need FTP, or the ability to modify your site over an above what Blogger gives you, then it’s probably time to run your own blogging application on your own hosting account.
Hmmm… that sounds tricky. I am with 1 & 1 Internet, just a basic home package. If I use a template solution from them I can add that and Forms in. I wonder if its possible to use them with my own design…?
Sedgar1, unfortunately if they stop providing FTP, there’s nothing you can do about it, the only way around it would be to purchase your own web-space and domain and you can manage your own website (with your host or someone else). It might seem daunting however it doesn’t take an extensive amount of knowledge to be able to run a website. Once you pay for a domain and hosting package, the domain will look after itself (it’ll redirect users to your hosting automatically), and your hosting space will have an FTP account so you can login (as before) and just upload your files to the new location so it’ll be visible on the web.
I suppose because i am new to it all, it seems far worse than it is!
Do you know of any reading material that explains how to do it - which is easy to undestand!?
I do have webspace at 1&1 internet, and i have already uploaded the website to it which works okay. I presume i can upload anything to it, including whatever i need to make blogs work on the site… what would you recommend for Blogs and Form support?
Sorry to be such a pain - your replies are most appreciated though.
Could you be a bit more specific in what you’re after? Did you want something on changing hosts, registering a domain, or something else (like installing a blog)?
Generally speaking, as you already have a host, there should be a mechanism in place (unique to 1&1) to get stuff uploaded onto your website. If you want a guide for something they offer (such as a file manager) you would probably do best to check their help files (as I’ve no experience with them). Generally speaking though if it’s FTP you are after and they have no FTP account with the package you are on, you could probably upgrade the account to something which does have it.
Thanks Alex. What I am trying to achieve is the integration of a Blog into a website. Ian Lloyds book showed me how to do it with Blogger. It no longer looked like a blog, but a proper part of the website. Blogger uses ftp.
The idea was that all members would be given access to Blogger which in turn would update the news section on the website without giving them access to my 1 & 1 login details. I would post a link, but i am to new and it wont let me so i’ll try to send it to you direct so you can see what i am trying to achieve. Dont laugh at my code!
Well, 1&1 use WordPress but I know nothing about that. I assume that in my webspace i will find some sort of file i can customise… Will note down on the thread what I find as it may help others.
I just wrote a very helpful reply. However, it gave me an error with the message that I can’t provide links until five posts. I hit the back button and my two paragraphs with very clear instructions on “what to do” disappeared. That surprises me given me this is SitePoint! There shouldn’t be errors like that here. Anyway… In short, download Filezilla Server.
I noticed that problem too, as you say, odd to find that bug on the Sitepoint site.
ANyway, i will have a look at Filezilla Server - I assume I download it to my PC then upload it to the webspace I have on 1 and 1 Internet - i cant host from home.
I did try a couple of things - creating a Blog with 1 & 1 Internet’s solution, but it creates a WordPress blog but i cant find the template it uses to alter it. It also uses a subdomain which 1 & 1 charge for (I thought they were free but clearly not). 1 & 1 also disable the RSS feed link on the Blog - the link is there but comes up with an error, giving the impression I cant create a basic link!
So, moving away from that solution, i created a WordPress blog at wordpress, but I cant find an advanced section to tweak that either…
So looks like your solution is worth exploring. Just hope its easy to understand! shame about your notes.
Thanks Ryan, I suspected we could do something like that. The problem isn’t so much that, its when you prepare a reply, press submit and it then says you cant post it for whatever reason (in his and my case it was the links). If you then press the back button, everything you wrote has vanished and you have to retype the lot from scratch.
In my case its normally more coherent the second time round, so probably a benefit in my case! - but its still a pain to have to retype it…
By the way, what did you have to do to get CSS Guru of the year?? love to see a few examples of your work. Ian Lloyds book (see above) was great, but not sure what to read next and to see a few examples would really help (or confuse at this stage, not sure which!).
Hi Ryan. I’m sorry if I was not clear enough in my reply to Sedgar. He’s already clarified it now… but just to make sure, it isn’t the “five posts before posting links” rule. That is perfectly understandable.
It’s hitting the back button which wipes out your reply that is the problem. If I see a forum or website that I don’t have a lot of faith in, I would normally copy the message before hitting reply. But I look at SitePoint like I would a 5 star restaurant and didn’t think that was necessary. I guess it’s like getting a dirty fork at a 5-star restaurant. It would be unthinkable.
