Best website creator??

[myxpykalix]

I'm looking for a SIMPLE website creator that might have a WYSIWYG interface where you can just layout a top banner, buttons, pictures on a page with text that might wrap around it without having to learn to be a frickin rocket scientist!

I use frontpage but i find that i have to go in and manually edit all the html for pictures locations as it assigns the location on my computer in the html. I don't want info on these places that will host the site and give you access to a website creator like godaddy or intuit because i've already got a provider. Plus i'm aggrivated with them.....plus if you have any examples of sites created with these pgms would be great. Thanks

[bob_s]

Jack
One possibility is to buy an XML website. These templates use Flash and allow a lot of customization with a simple word processor, and all of your images just get put in a folder with consecutive numbers for names. These "high end" websites cost many thousands to have developed, but there are several groups of programmers around the world that are selling them for next to nothing. the one listed here cost $39.
http://www.flashcomponents.net/component/full_xml_template_website_portfolio.html Take a look at the whole WWW.flashcomponenets.net (http://WWW.flashcomponenets.net) site. I have no connection to this company, but I have bought website templates from them. I can write a little of this kind of code,painfully slowly, but I dissected the one I recently purchased and there was nothing hidden, no data stealing, just a good web site. www.studiopaintings.com (http://www.studiopaintings.com) is my wife's paintings, she wanted a simple, fast, very clean design. One of these templates fit her requirements perfectly. Yes this is international outsourcing, but it will allow you do have a great website that you can maintain yourself. The only downside is that Google will only partially index XML websites unless you add some HTML information for them to "see". This isn't difficult to do, and if high Google scores are not necessary, you don't have to do it at all.

[navigator7]

Apple's iWeb does what you want.
I think I pay $100 every year.
There are free online website creators that are exactly what you want.
GoDaddy is one.

If you are looking for a local presence look up City-Data.
What I like about City-Data it a very basic website...nothing fancy. Name, addy , phone number, e-mail and you can post a ton of pics.
Dead solid simple.
Free.
I got more business from that one shot-in-the-dark website experiment than my full blown website. I paid really money for a professionally done website and couldn't edit myself when I wanted to.

Apple' iWeb is totally editable like you say but I'm not sure it is picked up on the web like a pro site or like City-Data.

Here is and example:
http://www.city-data.com/profiles/5991

[GlenP]

Jack try the one I use. They have a free 10 day trial as well. The website is www.ibuilt.net (http://www.ibuilt.net).
Easy to use no html or rocket science to learn.
Glen

[cabindoors]

Jack,

Several years ago I downloaded "Cool Page" and it worked for me. It is WYSIWYG based and it was free. I still use it since it is so simple.
It has it's shortcomings in terms of e-commerce I think, but it has upgrades you can buy.

Tom

[stump]

You might try www.weebly.com (http://www.weebly.com) for your site. The software is online, free, and is also hosted free. I used it for my Mother's flower shop and it worked well. Very easy to add pages, pictures, galleries,text, etc. and you can use your own web address. TIME listed it as one of their TOP 50 Websites, and I can see why. The only downside I saw was that you have to be online to work on the site. Other than that, it has worked great.

[servant74]

try sites.google.com and it is free

[harryball]

My buddy Marty. :-)

/RB

[scootie]

Jack,
Just the opinion from a country boy. I have mainly used FrontPage (now it's Expression Web and still very similar) for ten years and as you know you can create sites that load fast and look just as good, it's in the design not how savy you are with writing html. If you are already familiar with FP, you might have your web host install the FP Extensions, you can then edit "live" and you keep all your files in the proper places. You can still edit off-line if you want then go online and sync the files.
I recently got Xara Web Designer, it's simple and very creative when placing stuff "exactly" where you want it, but trying to edit a published page with another program is a nightmare, breaks each image and text item on the page into "cells" that are controlled with CSS, but you can always go back to Xara, edit the page and upload it again. Xara will do exactly what it sounds like you are wanting to do and is only around $50, the goodies that come with it are worth more than that.

Larry

[gene]

Vista print has 500 buisness cards for 1.99 plus shipping ( total 8.00 ) and they have web sited for about 10.00 a month . I have been going to get into this further but havent had the time. A guy must sleep after Turkey.....

[benchmench]

www.officelive.com (http://www.officelive.com) - Free hosting, built-in templates, your own domain, email and more.

[myxpykalix]

Gene i looked at vistaprint now i get a spam email EVERYDAY from them.

[r_jones]

I have used NVU and have been pretty happy with it. Here's a link http://download.cnet.com/Nvu/3000-10247_4-10412423.html

[foamcarver]

Hi All

I don’t know if anyone remembers us we had a company called foamcarver and we used the shopbot to create large foam pieces but we had to sell due to some unfortunate circumstances.

We are doing OK as we had other businesses that have kept us going during the rough times.

The reason I’ am posting again is that I talked to Bill Palumbo today and he said that many of the shopbotters needed someone to help create a web presence many of you had no idea how to do this and that is was to expensive.

One of the businesses that we had prior to starting foamcarver was a web development company and has been developing websites for our customers since 1998. http://www.webstudiousa.com

I told Bill that we can offer shopbotters a complete website that you can update yourself. We will design - setup hosting - 1-email account for $395.00 and we will include the 1st year of hosting a $179.40 value on its own. If any one is interested in our offer you can call us at 651-778-2950 or email mmeggitt@webstudiousa.com (mailto:mmeggitt@webstudiousa.com)

tell us you are shopbotters and we will give you this special pricing.

Looking forward to helping you develop a professional image on the web.

Mark Meggitt

[myxpykalix]

mark you guys (and gal) made the foam parrott and ape and others for some animal park right?
We miss your monsterous creations!

[foamcarver]

Yes we did and we miss it too!!!

[foamcarver]

A friend of ours purchased our shopbot and here are some photos of blue foam cut on shopbot

8136
8137

[foamcarver]

8138
small elephant dinosaur in background

[foamcarver]

8139
Large Elephant - small Nikki!!!

[harryball]

In answering the OP for this thread I can suggest Marty. http://www.martymedia.net/

For a sample of his work, my new site is finally released...
http://www.habitatforbats.org
I got pretty much exactly what I wanted. He kept making my site too polished and refined. I was afraid looking too "corporate" or "industrial" would be counter productive in our case. He did the main site not the store or forums. I'm responsible for their ugliness. I'm still updating content and tweaking things here or there.

Another sample, http://www.greek-tags.com/

Anyway, I'm sure he can work up a good price for fellow shopbotters. If you already have your content like myself the process is smooth. I have a good frame work that is easy to update with as little or as much html knowledge as you desire to apply.

/RB

[myxpykalix]

harry your site upon first glance looks simple and neat and uncomplicated and perfect, the only criticism i would have is the guy in the center picture. lol. Actually it looks really good. I'm not a fan of alot of these flash intros that you have to sit thru to get to the front page of a site. KISS (keep it simple stupid) you/he did real good, an improvement over your first one.

[myxpykalix]

Mark
"Large Elephant - small Nikki!!!"

whats really sad is the elephant is only 4 feet tall!

[harryball]

In response to Jack's comments...

Male response:
yeah well... that was 2 years and 37 lbs ago... I'm much better looking now, if that's possible. :-)

Female response:
What? You think my previous site was #$%#? and I'm a simpleton and fat?

Thanks Jack. I think Marty did a great job.

Sorry ladies, just been dealing with the wife and sometimes the logic escapes me. :-)

/RB

[gene]

Mark
Are you still doing the foam animals ? Where are the elephants and bear going?

[dray]

Dreamweaver hands down

Http://www.ampedbikes.com

[propellers]

I used Kalamazoo Software 269-345-2564. I put off building a better site for year thinking I didn't have the time but Andy made my site building so fast and easy,I couldn't imagine the process being easier. He updates and responds to our needs in a very timely manner. All of the information was accomplished via telephone and e-mails. Ck our site http://www.princeaircraft.com. The price was well worth the professional work accomplished. Our sales dramatically increased over the old site.