Free Websites!

[chargirlgenius]

It occurred to me that there are probably plenty of artisans out there who don't have websites to showcase their work. I know not everybody likes to brag, but just showing what you're working on might help somebody else with what they're working on.

I know a lot of people use LJ for a personal journal and for dress diaries, but I thought it might be fun to explore how to set up what looks like a more traditional website than a blog. I've been playing with the idea of transitioning my own website into a wordpress blog, so as to more easily control content without having to deal with HTML, FTP, and a lot of other acronyms. But really, it's possible to do this in a format that anybody reading this is probably already familiar with, LJ.

I'm sure that none of this is news to a lot of people, but I started playing around today, and thought I'd share. Maybe it'll be useful to somebody. I don't think I'll keep the other journal all that up to date, rather, I'll likely use it more as a template or sample to share. Then again, you never know. I might break down and use a dress diary. Generally, I prefer to subject all of my readers to kid pictures along with medievalism posts. Muh hah ha... *ahem*

So, without further ado, I present How to Have a Website for No Money or Technical Skill (at Costly Thy Habit). It's created entirely using the LJ Text editor (yes I WAY prefer just using the HTML editor, but a lot of people don't know HTML) and Flickr. I did just copy a bunch of stuff over from my other site, so there are links to PDFs which, as far as I know, you can't really put on the web without a place to host them, but other than that, you can do everything there for free and without tech skills.

Hope this is useful!

Comments

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

I just uploaded a PDF to Google Docs. I can share the document without letting others edit it. Here is a game (https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6DO2Z4N-nT8MWMzY2JlYWMtZTYyNS00ODNhLWI4YmItY2E1NTdjN2E4ZDVj&hl=en) and here's another (https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B6DO2Z4N-nT8NTQ4MWY4ZTktYjIyMy00ZDk1LWJiYmEtMTFkODJhZmQyZmQ5&hl=en).

Let's see if the direct links worked. They're really ugly.

Edited: they worked.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's awesome! Thank you.

For the most part, my goal is to convert all of them to HTML articles, but this is still really helpful.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

Google Docs claims to be able to publish these as web pages. If I have a lull today, I'll try that, too.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

I've seen that too. That's certainly a good alternate option. I've just never tried it to see what your URL might be.

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

I know I saw this last night, but now I can't find where. *sigh*

That was one of my biggets problems

[lisettelaroux.livejournal.com]

THANKS for the info.

Re: That was one of my biggets problems

[sskipstress.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. We've started using Google Docs for collaboration work, so I've been learning more and more about what it can do. Always happy to share what I know.

[northernotter.livejournal.com]

You must have read my mind! I was just about to PM somebody and ask for a little advice... if you need a gunea pig, I'll happily volunteer :)

That is the awesome

[lisettelaroux.livejournal.com]

Now I just need to figure out how you did it.....LOL

It looks fantastic and is exactly what I need.

[silverstah.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful advice! Thank you!

[reabhecc.livejournal.com]

The thing I like about Wordpress as opposed to LiveJournal, at least from the point of view of having a website and not a blog, is that it allows you to build pages in addition to posts.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm ultimately going to go that route. Eventually... I should start playing with it now, though. My ISP needs to upgrade my account to be on the machine that supports Wordpress stuff, but we've already been chatting about it. Mostly, I have SO MANY pictures at my account that it's going to be a big job.

[snolan.livejournal.com]

This is only a very long term consideration; but one thing you should consider when using hosted sites (where some other entity is hosting your stuff online) is to have a regular backup to someplace else in case said entity goes under. Eventually, they all do.

Having said that, hosting stuff on 3rd party sites like wordpress.com and livejournal.com makes it cheap, easy, and very reliable; just have a backup plan.

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. I know that for myself, when I implement wordpress (or something else in the long run) I'll be hosting it myself instead of at wordpress blog site.