[Guide] What to know, before buying a website!

[Blane]

Hey, wassup maxcheaters!

 

Recently, I got a pm from a kid here (I won't give a name) who wanted to co-operate with me for a website. You know, there are some guys over right here, who are SELLING "webdesign services" for a really low cost. What the give? A nice "image" full o texts and nonsense which looks good in your browser and you think you made a nice DEAL, but it looks crappy either when you add content or ie. trying to add a button in your navigation. Let me make some things clear for you.

 

First off: Taking a look at the market

 

Well, in order to get started with Web Design you should first check out the market prices. Web Design is a whole industry and the prices out there have nothing to do, with SOME of the prices I've seen in some cases over here. The going rate for web design can vary greatly. It is entirely possible to find someone that will build you a website for $100. It is also possible to find someone that would charge you $10,000 to build that same site. Why is that? Why would the range of costs vary so much? Well, those rock bottom prices are typically from "designers" who:

• are in high school, living in their parent's basement
  
• have very little experience and even less expertise
  
• create inferior products (and don't even know it!)
  
• work in India, in a web design sweat shop
  

To be honest with you, here in Greece the prices are a BIT nicer, comparing to the outer world, and that's because some offices here don't even care about the latest and greatest technologies out there. They code in an old knowledge base that may still work but still, it's not the same nice nowadays technology. So the price for a SIMPLE STATIC (we'll get to that) website starts around 360€ (including one sub page).

 

So, prices differ from case to case, but you want to know the criteria before buying a website, don't you?

 

Criteria for a proper website

 

So, reaching this point you might wonder? Then why guy 'X' asks for like 50€ for a website? You guessed it right! He's not making something exceptional. He's just doing the stuff some guy taught him from youtube and it's all wrong. The result might look fantastic in your eyes but that's why you should know the following. There are many, many factors that contribute to a successful website, in the least it should:

• be built according to web standards
  
• work in all browsers (not everyone browses the web the same way)
  
• be optimized for search engines; that is, your site actually appears in search results
  
• be appealing to your target audience
  
• utilize metrics to help you measure performance
  
• accommodate new technologies
  

Can your low-end designer give you that? No, and they don't even know it.  But does that necessarily mean you have to spend a fortune on your website? Probably not, unless you are a corporation or enterprise level entity seeking to develop a large-scale, complex business platform. What would I do in your situation if I needed a website? I would shop around. Ask questions. If a designer won't answer questions, then move on...they either don't know the answer or don't think your questions are important. Gather information so you can make an informed decision...

 

What's about PSD's and RIP's?

 

Photoshop is a great tool. I'll call it ultimate tool for webdesigning and graphic design. The problem is, that Photoshop ISN'T a tool that can help in web DEVELOPMENT. Yeah, you heard it right. Photoshop is a tool for DESIGNING pages, not to code them.

 

You might have heard of the famous feature (most of the wannabe web-designers know it here) which is called "Save for Web & Devices". Actually this is a very neat feature of Photoshop. It's MEANT to be used in order to OPTIMIZE some images for the web. The whole "Slicing images" technique has nothing to do with exporting a generated HTML file from Photoshop. See, the slice refers to the procedure, where you go and take a piece of your website (like a background little piece or a button, or a photo) and you save it as a SEPARATE image to be used IN your CODING.

 

Yeah, I'm shouting with the caps, cause some guys are totally confused to that term. They use the slice tool, and then "Save for web & devices" and they have an html file with some image folder. Let me make it clear:

 

THIS, IS NOT WEB DESIGNING! Actually it is. DESIGN. It has nothing to do with coding. Photoshop, in short words, is generating a piece of HTML file using TABLES and for many many reasons (read 'em here), you don't want your site to be like that. If a designer claims to say he code it himself you can always look at the source code of the html file he gave to you.

 

 

You see this "ImageReady Slices (l2mafia.psd)" green thingie there? That's a generated html comment that Photoshop puts (CS2, if I'm not wrong) and the so called "web designer" didn't even care to remove it. So, if someone is smart enough he might remove it, but again those nonsense 'images/spacer.gif' photoshop puts in the html code can easily be detected.

 

So, to conclude: THIS IS NOT HOW A PROPERLY DEVELOPED WEBSITE'S SOURCE SHOULD LOOK.

 

Now, riping is a term that is known here in maxcheaters. Unfortunately there are programs out there like HTTP Track Pro Ultimate Ever DOomedwh8(E@*)*@E crap that SHOULD be used to have some website back'ed up for offline reading, but at the end it's used in order to RIP someone's work. HTML files and CSS can always be ripped and there're no ways you can defend it. A thing that CAN'T be ripped is php and serverside code which is not the case for that topic.

 

So when buying a template, be sure to give it a proper copyright. Ambitious wannabe webdesigner DO put their name under a template and claim they "developed" it (right hahah), so don't get anxious about your existing website.

 

Static or Dynamic? (o.O)

 

HTML&CSS is a skill that every single web designer should have. Nowadays, when you ask for a template, you get the properly developed (remember? :P) html file with one or two css files, plus some image directory and javascript directory. That's it. That's a usual template directory structure. But what you can do with it?

 

Well, one way is to copy and paste a couple of times the index.html file, rename it and then populate each file with a different content. Yeah, that's a way, I agree, but this is the STATIC way of doing things. I mean, in case you don't know how to edit the HTML code, then you might ask it from your web designer and he might asks for more money. Designing a nicely crafted paragraph with an image (in case of a "news" page) is not that easy work to do, when don't know shit about HTML. That's why there's an other category of websites. The DYNAMICALLY populated websites.

 

Dynamic websites, usually come with an admin panel, which is a GUI in your browser, telling you what to edit and usually they have a preview button to see your result. They way they work? When you login to your admin panel (passwords and stuff should be given to you from the webdeveloper) you should see some buttons. Play with them, explore your panel (you may have been given some instructions, read 'em) and when you come up with a form like a textarea then the rest should be easy for you. You can easily add content to your website pretty much the way you would write in a word processor (like Word, Excel etc..).

 

As you probably have guessed, dynamic websites do COST more than static websites. It's clearly your decision and there's nothing better or worse. You should really care for dynamic website, when your content is refreshing or expanding rapidly...

 

Conclusion. Having questions?

 

You might be confused with all these. What I wanted to say is the following statement:

 

"You always get, what you pay for. It's your choice if you go for a cheap webdesign or a high-budget one. You should be sure, that if you pay more than regular, you'll get eventually something nicer than the others."

 

After all these kind of information, if you still have questions about webdesign & development, please consider posting a reply here. I won't reply to spam/trolling. Be nice and gentle if you need an answer, as I was. Thanks :)

 

Who is 'Blane' eventually?

 

Well, many of you (oldschool members) might know me. I was in the staff before a long time and now I'm just hanging over somewhere between off-topics and spam-topics. When I was asked for the co-operation I told in the first paragraph I was shocked of how young kids are unaware of the whole business industry of webdesign.

 

Besides that, I'm a webdesigner myself and I have been designing websites for almost 5 years now. I'm not that experienced, but I'm trying to be more "in-to" the things as the time goes by. I you're unhappy with my work, then please, don't judge the prices I ask. Almost every website you've seen from me here, is a REALLY low-budget website (~80-100€) and that's because none of you every tried to buy something better. I hope this topic enlightens you for your future websites (though I'm not forcing anyone to buy from me).

 

I just wanted to make things clearer. Now, you 'wannabe webdesingers', I have nothing against you. You should really follow this career because it's magical, adventurous and of course FUN. You just have to follow the new trends, trying to learn some coding (HTML&CSS) and try to craft a website from completely zero. My step-by-step tutorial might be handy for you, you can check it here.

 

Excuse me for any typos. Everything here is hand-written and it's copyrighted by myself. Hope you enjoyed! Best wishes,

Blane

[Blane]

Hey, wassup maxcheaters!

 

Recently, I got a pm from a kid here (I won't give a name) who wanted to co-operate with me for a website. You know, there are some guys over right here, who are SELLING "webdesign services" for a really low cost. What the give? A nice "image" full o texts and nonsense which looks good in your browser and you think you made a nice DEAL, but it looks crappy either when you add content or ie. trying to add a button in your navigation. Let me make some things clear for you.

 

First off: Taking a look at the market

 

Well, in order to get started with Web Design you should first check out the market prices. Web Design is a whole industry and the prices out there have nothing to do, with SOME of the prices I've seen in some cases over here. The going rate for web design can vary greatly. It is entirely possible to find someone that will build you a website for $100. It is also possible to find someone that would charge you $10,000 to build that same site. Why is that? Why would the range of costs vary so much? Well, those rock bottom prices are typically from "designers" who:

• are in high school, living in their parent's basement
  
• have very little experience and even less expertise
  
• create inferior products (and don't even know it!)
  
• work in India, in a web design sweat shop
  

To be honest with you, here in Greece the prices are a BIT nicer, comparing to the outer world, and that's because some offices here don't even care about the latest and greatest technologies out there. They code in an old knowledge base that may still work but still, it's not the same nice nowadays technology. So the price for a SIMPLE STATIC (we'll get to that) website starts around 360€ (including one sub page).

 

So, prices differ from case to case, but you want to know the criteria before buying a website, don't you?

 

Criteria for a proper website

 

So, reaching this point you might wonder? Then why guy 'X' asks for like 50€ for a website? You guessed it right! He's not making something exceptional. He's just doing the stuff some guy taught him from youtube and it's all wrong. The result might look fantastic in your eyes but that's why you should know the following. There are many, many factors that contribute to a successful website, in the least it should:

• be built according to web standards
  
• work in all browsers (not everyone browses the web the same way)
  
• be optimized for search engines; that is, your site actually appears in search results
  
• be appealing to your target audience
  
• utilize metrics to help you measure performance
  
• accommodate new technologies
  

Can your low-end designer give you that? No, and they don't even know it.  But does that necessarily mean you have to spend a fortune on your website? Probably not, unless you are a corporation or enterprise level entity seeking to develop a large-scale, complex business platform. What would I do in your situation if I needed a website? I would shop around. Ask questions. If a designer won't answer questions, then move on...they either don't know the answer or don't think your questions are important. Gather information so you can make an informed decision...

 

What's about PSD's and RIP's?

 

Photoshop is a great tool. I'll call it ultimate tool for webdesigning and graphic design. The problem is, that Photoshop ISN'T a tool that can help in web DEVELOPMENT. Yeah, you heard it right. Photoshop is a tool for DESIGNING pages, not to code them.

 

You might have heard of the famous feature (most of the wannabe web-designers know it here) which is called "Save for Web & Devices". Actually this is a very neat feature of Photoshop. It's MEANT to be used in order to OPTIMIZE some images for the web. The whole "Slicing images" technique has nothing to do with exporting a generated HTML file from Photoshop. See, the slice refers to the procedure, where you go and take a piece of your website (like a background little piece or a button, or a photo) and you save it as a SEPARATE image to be used IN your CODING.

 

Yeah, I'm shouting with the caps, cause some guys are totally confused to that term. They use the slice tool, and then "Save for web & devices" and they have an html file with some image folder. Let me make it clear:

 

THIS, IS NOT WEB DESIGNING! Actually it is. DESIGN. It has nothing to do with coding. Photoshop, in short words, is generating a piece of HTML file using TABLES and for many many reasons (read 'em here), you don't want your site to be like that. If a designer claims to say he code it himself you can always look at the source code of the html file he gave to you.

 

 

You see this "ImageReady Slices (l2mafia.psd)" green thingie there? That's a generated html comment that Photoshop puts (CS2, if I'm not wrong) and the so called "web designer" didn't even care to remove it. So, if someone is smart enough he might remove it, but again those nonsense 'images/spacer.gif' photoshop puts in the html code can easily be detected.

 

So, to conclude: THIS IS NOT HOW A PROPERLY DEVELOPED WEBSITE'S SOURCE SHOULD LOOK.

 

Now, riping is a term that is known here in maxcheaters. Unfortunately there are programs out there like HTTP Track Pro Ultimate Ever DOomedwh8(E@*)*@E crap that SHOULD be used to have some website back'ed up for offline reading, but at the end it's used in order to RIP someone's work. HTML files and CSS can always be ripped and there're no ways you can defend it. A thing that CAN'T be ripped is php and serverside code which is not the case for that topic.

 

So when buying a template, be sure to give it a proper copyright. Ambitious wannabe webdesigner DO put their name under a template and claim they "developed" it (right hahah), so don't get anxious about your existing website.

 

Static or Dynamic? (o.O)

 

HTML&CSS is a skill that every single web designer should have. Nowadays, when you ask for a template, you get the properly developed (remember? :P) html file with one or two css files, plus some image directory and javascript directory. That's it. That's a usual template directory structure. But what you can do with it?

 

Well, one way is to copy and paste a couple of times the index.html file, rename it and then populate each file with a different content. Yeah, that's a way, I agree, but this is the STATIC way of doing things. I mean, in case you don't know how to edit the HTML code, then you might ask it from your web designer and he might asks for more money. Designing a nicely crafted paragraph with an image (in case of a "news" page) is not that easy work to do, when don't know shit about HTML. That's why there's an other category of websites. The DYNAMICALLY populated websites.

 

Dynamic websites, usually come with an admin panel, which is a GUI in your browser, telling you what to edit and usually they have a preview button to see your result. They way they work? When you login to your admin panel (passwords and stuff should be given to you from the webdeveloper) you should see some buttons. Play with them, explore your panel (you may have been given some instructions, read 'em) and when you come up with a form like a textarea then the rest should be easy for you. You can easily add content to your website pretty much the way you would write in a word processor (like Word, Excel etc..).

 

As you probably have guessed, dynamic websites do COST more than static websites. It's clearly your decision and there's nothing better or worse. You should really care for dynamic website, when your content is refreshing or expanding rapidly...

 

Conclusion. Having questions?

 

You might be confused with all these. What I wanted to say is the following statement:

 

"You always get, what you pay for. It's your choice if you go for a cheap webdesign or a high-budget one. You should be sure, that if you pay more than regular, you'll get eventually something nicer than the others."

 

After all these kind of information, if you still have questions about webdesign & development, please consider posting a reply here. I won't reply to spam/trolling. Be nice and gentle if you need an answer, as I was. Thanks :)

 

Who is 'Blane' eventually?

 

Well, many of you (oldschool members) might know me. I was in the staff before a long time and now I'm just hanging over somewhere between off-topics and spam-topics. When I was asked for the co-operation I told in the first paragraph I was shocked of how young kids are unaware of the whole business industry of webdesign.

 

Besides that, I'm a webdesigner myself and I have been designing websites for almost 5 years now. I'm not that experienced, but I'm trying to be more "in-to" the things as the time goes by. I you're unhappy with my work, then please, don't judge the prices I ask. Almost every website you've seen from me here, is a REALLY low-budget website (~80-100€) and that's because none of you every tried to buy something better. I hope this topic enlightens you for your future websites (though I'm not forcing anyone to buy from me).

 

I just wanted to make things clearer. Now, you 'wannabe webdesingers', I have nothing against you. You should really follow this career because it's magical, adventurous and of course FUN. You just have to follow the new trends, trying to learn some coding (HTML&CSS) and try to craft a website from completely zero. My step-by-step tutorial might be handy for you, you can check it here.

 

Excuse me for any typos. Everything here is hand-written and it's copyrighted by myself. Hope you enjoyed! Best wishes,

Blane

[Blane]

Hey, wassup maxcheaters!

 

Recently, I got a pm from a kid here (I won't give a name) who wanted to co-operate with me for a website. You know, there are some guys over right here, who are SELLING "webdesign services" for a really low cost. What the give? A nice "image" full o texts and nonsense which looks good in your browser and you think you made a nice DEAL, but it looks crappy either when you add content or ie. trying to add a button in your navigation. Let me make some things clear for you.

 

First off: Taking a look at the market

 

Well, in order to get started with Web Design you should first check out the market prices. Web Design is a whole industry and the prices out there have nothing to do, with SOME of the prices I've seen in some cases over here. The going rate for web design can vary greatly. It is entirely possible to find someone that will build you a website for $100. It is also possible to find someone that would charge you $10,000 to build that same site. Why is that? Why would the range of costs vary so much? Well, those rock bottom prices are typically from "designers" who:

• are in high school, living in their parent's basement
  
• have very little experience and even less expertise
  
• create inferior products (and don't even know it!)
  
• work in India, in a web design sweat shop
  

To be honest with you, here in Greece the prices are a BIT nicer, comparing to the outer world, and that's because some offices here don't even care about the latest and greatest technologies out there. They code in an old knowledge base that may still work but still, it's not the same nice nowadays technology. So the price for a SIMPLE STATIC (we'll get to that) website starts around 360€ (including one sub page).

 

So, prices differ from case to case, but you want to know the criteria before buying a website, don't you?

 

Criteria for a proper website

 

So, reaching this point you might wonder? Then why guy 'X' asks for like 50€ for a website? You guessed it right! He's not making something exceptional. He's just doing the stuff some guy taught him from youtube and it's all wrong. The result might look fantastic in your eyes but that's why you should know the following. There are many, many factors that contribute to a successful website, in the least it should:

• be built according to web standards
  
• work in all browsers (not everyone browses the web the same way)
  
• be optimized for search engines; that is, your site actually appears in search results
  
• be appealing to your target audience
  
• utilize metrics to help you measure performance
  
• accommodate new technologies
  

Can your low-end designer give you that? No, and they don't even know it.  But does that necessarily mean you have to spend a fortune on your website? Probably not, unless you are a corporation or enterprise level entity seeking to develop a large-scale, complex business platform. What would I do in your situation if I needed a website? I would shop around. Ask questions. If a designer won't answer questions, then move on...they either don't know the answer or don't think your questions are important. Gather information so you can make an informed decision...

 

What's about PSD's and RIP's?

 

Photoshop is a great tool. I'll call it ultimate tool for webdesigning and graphic design. The problem is, that Photoshop ISN'T a tool that can help in web DEVELOPMENT. Yeah, you heard it right. Photoshop is a tool for DESIGNING pages, not to code them.

 

You might have heard of the famous feature (most of the wannabe web-designers know it here) which is called "Save for Web & Devices". Actually this is a very neat feature of Photoshop. It's MEANT to be used in order to OPTIMIZE some images for the web. The whole "Slicing images" technique has nothing to do with exporting a generated HTML file from Photoshop. See, the slice refers to the procedure, where you go and take a piece of your website (like a background little piece or a button, or a photo) and you save it as a SEPARATE image to be used IN your CODING.

 

Yeah, I'm shouting with the caps, cause some guys are totally confused to that term. They use the slice tool, and then "Save for web & devices" and they have an html file with some image folder. Let me make it clear:

 

THIS, IS NOT WEB DESIGNING! Actually it is. DESIGN. It has nothing to do with coding. Photoshop, in short words, is generating a piece of HTML file using TABLES and for many many reasons (read 'em here), you don't want your site to be like that. If a designer claims to say he code it himself you can always look at the source code of the html file he gave to you.

 

 

You see this "ImageReady Slices (l2mafia.psd)" green thingie there? That's a generated html comment that Photoshop puts (CS2, if I'm not wrong) and the so called "web designer" didn't even care to remove it. So, if someone is smart enough he might remove it, but again those nonsense 'images/spacer.gif' photoshop puts in the html code can easily be detected.

 

So, to conclude: THIS IS NOT HOW A PROPERLY DEVELOPED WEBSITE'S SOURCE SHOULD LOOK.

 

Now, riping is a term that is known here in maxcheaters. Unfortunately there are programs out there like HTTP Track Pro Ultimate Ever DOomedwh8(E@*)*@E crap that SHOULD be used to have some website back'ed up for offline reading, but at the end it's used in order to RIP someone's work. HTML files and CSS can always be ripped and there're no ways you can defend it. A thing that CAN'T be ripped is php and serverside code which is not the case for that topic.

 

So when buying a template, be sure to give it a proper copyright. Ambitious wannabe webdesigner DO put their name under a template and claim they "developed" it (right hahah), so don't get anxious about your existing website.

 

Static or Dynamic? (o.O)

 

HTML&CSS is a skill that every single web designer should have. Nowadays, when you ask for a template, you get the properly developed (remember? :P) html file with one or two css files, plus some image directory and javascript directory. That's it. That's a usual template directory structure. But what you can do with it?

 

Well, one way is to copy and paste a couple of times the index.html file, rename it and then populate each file with a different content. Yeah, that's a way, I agree, but this is the STATIC way of doing things. I mean, in case you don't know how to edit the HTML code, then you might ask it from your web designer and he might asks for more money. Designing a nicely crafted paragraph with an image (in case of a "news" page) is not that easy work to do, when don't know shit about HTML. That's why there's an other category of websites. The DYNAMICALLY populated websites.

 

Dynamic websites, usually come with an admin panel, which is a GUI in your browser, telling you what to edit and usually they have a preview button to see your result. They way they work? When you login to your admin panel (passwords and stuff should be given to you from the webdeveloper) you should see some buttons. Play with them, explore your panel (you may have been given some instructions, read 'em) and when you come up with a form like a textarea then the rest should be easy for you. You can easily add content to your website pretty much the way you would write in a word processor (like Word, Excel etc..).

 

As you probably have guessed, dynamic websites do COST more than static websites. It's clearly your decision and there's nothing better or worse. You should really care for dynamic website, when your content is refreshing or expanding rapidly...

 

Conclusion. Having questions?

 

You might be confused with all these. What I wanted to say is the following statement:

 

"You always get, what you pay for. It's your choice if you go for a cheap webdesign or a high-budget one. You should be sure, that if you pay more than regular, you'll get eventually something nicer than the others."

 

After all these kind of information, if you still have questions about webdesign & development, please consider posting a reply here. I won't reply to spam/trolling. Be nice and gentle if you need an answer, as I was. Thanks :)

 

Who is 'Blane' eventually?

 

Well, many of you (oldschool members) might know me. I was in the staff before a long time and now I'm just hanging over somewhere between off-topics and spam-topics. When I was asked for the co-operation I told in the first paragraph I was shocked of how young kids are unaware of the whole business industry of webdesign.

 

Besides that, I'm a webdesigner myself and I have been designing websites for almost 5 years now. I'm not that experienced, but I'm trying to be more "in-to" the things as the time goes by. I you're unhappy with my work, then please, don't judge the prices I ask. Almost every website you've seen from me here, is a REALLY low-budget website (~80-100€) and that's because none of you every tried to buy something better. I hope this topic enlightens you for your future websites (though I'm not forcing anyone to buy from me).

 

I just wanted to make things clearer. Now, you 'wannabe webdesingers', I have nothing against you. You should really follow this career because it's magical, adventurous and of course FUN. You just have to follow the new trends, trying to learn some coding (HTML&CSS) and try to craft a website from completely zero. My step-by-step tutorial might be handy for you, you can check it here.

 

Excuse me for any typos. Everything here is hand-written and it's copyrighted by myself. Hope you enjoyed! Best wishes,

Blane

[Justice]

Stickied.

[Justice]

Stickied.

[Justice]

Stickied.

[Raule]

didn't read lol

+1 rep

[Raule]

didn't read lol

+1 rep

[Raule]

didn't read lol

+1 rep

[UnSponsored]

WTF is that man?

it is realy awesome

1 more time i will say thnx to you...

[MrHotFire]

nice;)

[Stewie]

OFFTOPIC: Why do i see post twise?

(delete it if you fixed or it's not a bug)