How to make a website

Everywhere I look there are people wondering how to make a website. Not all
answers are presented in a friendly manner. There is always bits and pieces of
information here and there which confuses people who want to learn on their own.
I should know, I have been there and it was frustrating. Even for me, which I am
a software programmer and have 4 years under my belt. This frustration started when the company I was working for made me webmaster out of the blue and new nothing of the tools needed, so I started down that path and here I am now writing articles so others will not be as frustrated as I was. Software Programming and Web scripting are two different worlds and require different skill sets. The good thing with my programming background, I learned scripting like HTML, JavaScript, php in about week. Nevertheless, there were hurdles to accomplish and have learned what webmasters have to go through and have gain a new perspective.

So enough talk, and let's get started!

All the tools we'll use will be free and I'll provide the links on where to get them!

The Tools:

1) A web server - ( actually not needed yet but once you have don't have to spend time on it later )
There are two popular kinds, windows version IIS and unix/linux version Apache.
To save you the headache of configuring and installing IIS I recommend "The Uniform Server" since no installation is
required and can be placed on a usb stick as well.
http://www.uniformserver.com/
-- Ultimately, you do research on both and decide which one you like best.

2) Text Editor - ( These are what I recommend )
Notepad++ : I recommend this one because of syntax higlighting and regular expression
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Crimson Editor: Similar to Notepad++ ( I actually started with this one first but then like notepad++ feel )
http://www.crimsoneditor.com/

3) Image Editor -
Gimp ( free version of photoshop like tool )
http://www.gimp.org/

4) Since we are humans and can store or tolerate a certain amount of information the last thing we need
is references. There is only one I recommend for starters:
http://www.w3schools.com
This is an awesome site, if you learn most of what is on there, then you'll have a
very good foundation of knowledge.

All tools except for uniform server are self installable under windows. Haven't installed these on *nix system, Gimp comes installed in majority of *nix systems, and possible a web server but my articles are about web programming not installation specifics so please read any installation guides that they come with.
Ok, the uniform server is a big zipped file, just extract it to your favorite location. I have mine under c:\uniform server. In there you'll see a start.bat and stop.bat, these start and stop the server. Once you click start you'll see a new directory w:\ and your browser pops up with a purple screen page. At this point you're environment is set.

Let's test it

Open the w:\ directory, you should see a www/ folder, This is where all you web pages (.html..etc) files go. Typically you'll have something like:

www/
images/
scripts/
..
all other files here

so open up your editor and create a new file and type

Hello Everyone, I made this!!!!

Save it in the www/ folder as index.html ( there should be an index.php just rename it to index.php.old )

Now that you web server is running don't need nothing more other then start creating sites and placing them in the www/ folder for now.

For the finale, Let see your page
Open your favorite browser and at the address bar type:
http://localhost/

and enter, your page should now be displayed!

Congratulations, you made your first web page!

Article2: Planning our site!

Notepad++ : http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Crimson Editor: http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
Web Server:http://www.uniformserver.com/
ImageEditor: Gimp ( free version of photoshop like tool )
http://www.gimp.org/