HELP - How Do I... discussion

What on earth is a Domain?
Hopefully, folks will part with their knowledge on this subject.

I've got nothing. But would really appreciate some info on this. I have a domain, but nowhere to put it.

I'm trying to get a website up and realy need some help. All the jargon is driving me nuts.
I have a Domain Name AndyLoveAuthor.co.uk which is held with the Registar FASTHOSTS (where I bought the name) I'm building the Free website on Wix.com (I found out I can't take the site away from Wix to host somewhere else.) I can though, point my Domain Name to Wix. I have to pay Wix and FastHosts?
I don't know. I'm going to cry inthe corner now until my head stops hurting or someone helps :(

Andy, Try Dreamweaver to build your website. Or actually you can build it in MS word and save your pages as web pages and import them to Dreamweaver or another web builder. But Dreamweaver has its own FTP built in and you won't need to pay someone else in addition to paying FASTHOSTS. I assume you paid a yearly fee to them for your domaine?

I believe you can use a free web builder if you don't want Dreamweaver, since Dreamweaver is expensive, but then you need to get your FASTHOSTS to allow that web host company to post your site, but that changes your url to somethingsomethingAndyLoveauthor.co.uk. It's confusing.

I tried Wix and weebly and ran into the same problem.

I use Dreamweaver now, my niece gave it to me and helped me set it up. If you get it, I can try to help you, now that I know how. My niece and I did through email and I saved all her instructions.

But now that I have a website, it think it's pretty useless. I like my blog. I could put everything that's on my website on my blog if I want, I don't, but I think when my domain expires, I will just let it go. Or maybe keep it for when I am published. But for now...

The only trouble with not having a domain of your own, is the restrictions imposed on you when you host a blog or site via someone else like weebly or blogspot. No databases, no interactive scripts, etc. As for websites, no matter how easy to use the do-it-yourself site builders are, they do not, and can never, replace the control and flexibility that having a good knowledge of XHTML and scripts like Perl and PHP confer.

After all, you never know when you'll want to maintain a database of book purchasers so you can mass email them samples of the forthcoming sequel. You won't be able to sell the associated video, T-shirt and decoarative pillowcases from your site.

Free hosting isn't, in most cases, worth the money you pay for it. Bandwidth restrictions, program restrictions, security restrictions... I could go on. You are far better off buying a domain, pointing it to a paid host (Smartservers is a good one, or just email me and I'll host it for a small annual fee - but then I use Smartservers anyway.)

As for actually designing your website, there are a number of excellent free packages if oyu don't want to shell out for Dreamweaver. Arachne and First Page 2000 are just two of them.

Never use Front Page, or export stuff from Word. The code is awful, impossible to maintain, four times as big as it need be, and is optimised for Internet Explorer, whcih nowadays has less than half the browser market. The other browser users will not be able to see your site as you intended.

Just a few thought.

Paul, you explained it much better than I. Thanks

I'm ashamed to say, I passed a course on Dreamweaver. I also used it at work, but didn't like it much. Powerful, yes. (Don't know if I've got DW kicking around the house, somewhere.)
I have WebPlus X4 from Serif which is meant to be good.
It all seems to point toward me recreating my site in a "proper" package, on MY pc; then I can put it where I like?
If I chuck the site through W3, that should tell me what it's not compatible with and many other things?

Yes, and there are tools called Lint and Bobbie (just Google for them) that will spot any code errors, rate accessibility for visually impaired viewers and so on.

Superb, Paul. I'll check those out this weekend.
Cheers.