Setting Up Your Portfolio Web site

Several in our class have asked follow-up questions to last week’s class, so I thought I’d provide a few thoughts.

(Of course, you could enroll in Digital Journalism, which is taught every semester. :-)

First of all, you absolutely can host your portfolio site through a content-management system like Wordpress. If you have skills you’re comfortable with and don’t want to upset the apple cart, that’s fine. We will only be looking at the results, not what you went through to get there.

However, if you do decide to set up a code-based portfolio site, I thought I’d provide a few tips and guidelines:

Registering Domains and Acquiring Storage Space

 You’ve got to put your site into space that is accessible to Web users. If you want to buy your own Webspace, you can use a registrar (Yahoo Small Business, GoDaddy.com, FatCow, etc.).

When you acquire space, there are two components: registration (the URL that maps browsers to your content) and disk storage (the actual space your files are stored in). These can often be bought in a bundle, but can also be acquired separated.

Services like GoDaddy and Fatcow run about $5 per month for storage, plus about $10 a year registration. Yahoo is easier to use, but is about $10 per month with $10 registration. There are hundreds of choices out there, and most are good for what we’ve assigned. Let me know if you have questions about a given service or your site.

There are a couple of free options, but they are somewhat limited and difficult to use. Let me know if you want to explore those options.

Once you acquire space, you can start building pages and linking them together.

Software

If you want to start with code (to learn everything), I would recommend downloading BBedit Lite. It's a great code editor, and it's free. In it, you can write code (just like we did last week), and save it to your computer.

You will also need an FTP program to upload your pages and images when they're ready. There are dozens, but I recommend Fetch, which is free for 15 days, and if you like it, I have a student code to make the license permanent.

Coding Your Page

Once you have these pieces, then it's just a matter of writing the code, entering your text and graphics, and posting your site to your Web space.

I recommend picking up an HTML Quickstart manual.

You can get an earlier edition if you don’t plan to get too fancy, and they run as low $5 at used book stores.

If you’d prefer online tutorials, there are many, but here’s a good starting point:

http://www.html.net/tutorials/html/

Obviously, if you have access to a WYSIWYG editor (like Dreamweaver or Frontpage) you can use those interfaces to drag and drop Web page designs, and can even upload directly from that software.
Save pages in a folder on your computer or flash drive. Browse saved pages with a Web Browser (use “File>Open File” and browse to your saved pages). This way, you can go back and forth between your editor software (make changes) and your browser (see the changes) until your page looks the way you want it.

Uploading your page

Depending on your hosting service, you will enter the required login information to an FTP client (like Fetch, mentioned above). This will allow you access to the server where your files need to go.

Most FTP clients allow you log in and then drag and drop all your files onto the server window, copying all your files up to the server. Be sure to copy any images, or else they won’t show up when people browser your page.