Setting up a new website - advice needed

[Anne_Robinson]

I am a school librarian and have created a number of sites in the past using Frontpage, then Dreamweaver. I have also done a lot with our VLE, Kaleidos, to make the library sections look interesting. Now, I am about to start a new job, the library is very old and will be re-furbished next year. In the meantime, I will have to run a web-based service and I really want to wow the students and staff with a really dynamic website.

What I am asking is advice as to how I should best do this. I will be working alone, with no clerical support, so I will not have a lot of time. The Dreamweaver ftp idea takes up too much time. So, I have thought of using something like Wordpress. I have played around with it on a free version. If I go down this route, what would be the best hosting package?

I have read a lot on this forum about your Joomla! package and it looks really great. But I am not sure that I have the technical ability to go with this idea.

I would really appreciate some advice, Anne

[matt40k]

There's loads of packages out there!

Cpanel has a extra that most hosts have which auto installs stuff like wordpress, the only problem is that you need to patch it.

Not that wordpress is hard to install. I would spend time looking at stuff like phpnuke, wordpress, jooma, mambo etc, decide which one does what you want, which ones you can easy use.

I've in the passed had websites hosted on dedi servers, clusters, some vps, oversold cpanel resellers package. I would recommend keeping things simple. Go get a package with a big player. At least when you pay for year, you know they'll be there a year later.

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There all the same really. Look for the best deal for you.

Personally I like coding a website from scratch, in which case those lovely looking web control panels just annoy you, that's why I've got a cheap 64mb VPS. But it's not for everyone.

On other thing that's worth saying.

Moodle.

Might be worth a quick google.

[Anne_Robinson]

Thanks for your ideas, Matt. I decided to go for a hosted WordPress site in the end as I am reasonably familiar with it.

The bare bones of the site are at:

Dixie Grammar School Library Library Online

I am going to play around with it over the summer and see what happens.

Thanks
Anne

[contink]

Just to add... If you're short on time and coding experience it's definitely better to go with a managed service that looks after patches and security updates for you.

Getting a hosting account and then installing it is one thing but maintaining it is a royal pain, with patches sometimes requiring shell access which is generally unlikely. Given your spec I wouldn't go there until you're confident in PHP. Oh and as for CPanel installs.. Just don't... They are rarely up to date and when it comes to patching you'll have a much steeper curve knowing where stuff is compared to if you'd installed from scratch. Playing the long term game and learning the ropes from the beginning, in that scenario is smarter than a quick fix which leaves you stranded later.

Sounds like you've gone with the best option given your constraints though... Good luck with it

[Anne_Robinson]

Yes, I know that I will probably have a very steep learning curve! But, I will give it a try and maybe have some fun along the way. I cannot afford to pay very much as it is only a library website, but I will keep the free WordPress.com blog in case I get really stuck.

Thanks
Anne