hi everyone!!!
i keep missing the thursday chats!!! :0 hopefully, i'll be available-you all seem really great! so here's my question this time...i've noticed that some of you have websites for your clowning...really good ones, too...i am a HUGE idiot when it comes to computers...i have no idea how to start, what it entails, etc...i have a mac, and have heard that iLife would be sufficient...does anyone have any insight??? thanx again! :D

The best suggestion I have is to either buy a good program or better yet hire someone else with a good program. There are all kinds of little things when it comes to websites.

hi everyone!!!
i keep missing the thursday chats!!! :0 hopefully, i'll be available-you all seem really great! so here's my question this time...i've noticed that some of you have websites for your clowning...really good ones, too...i am a HUGE idiot when it comes to computers...i have no idea how to start, what it entails, etc...i have a mac, and have heard that iLife would be sufficient...does anyone have any insight??? thanx again! :D

Oh Brother is that a good question. Don't underestimate yourself. Ever heard the saying... "If you want to badly enough" apply yourself. You will reap the rewards. (taking a deep breath of great satisfaction.) Personally, with my experience, after I finally stopped procrastinating only by hating my own living guts for ever. I held my breath and took the plung. Online classes. Internet research. Surfing- getting ideas. I bought the $350.00 macromedia program,Trellix, two or three others. Came back to Homestead. That is a WYSIWYG. (what you see is what you get downloadable program from the net.). Lots of folks, are doing "My Space" I've seen some quality websites there. Basically, try not to be intimidated by the whole thing. It's not really that big o' deal. Create an outline for you site. Consider the elements you like about other sites you've seen. It will certainly increase biz and add to that professionalism. Pictures say a thousand words. That's especially good for us.

I would say surf around on the internet. Get yourself informed. If there is something you can find a lot about on the internet it is al kinds of tutorials (http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp this is the most extensive tutorial on the web I know of), programs, tools etc. for webdesigning. And you can make designing as difficult as you want it to be.

The easiest way is as Misspriss says using WYSIWYGs. You dont need any knowlegde of any webdesigning language. Using them does, altough you can make nice websites, limit your possibilitys

You can also go for it and learn yourself some basic HTML. (good tutorials are all over the web). This is the most used and basic language. With basic HTML knowlegde a bit of understanding of CSS and a simple HTML-editor (also downloadable from the web) you can get quiet far and it gives you a lot more freedom in how to make your site look like. I use Stones WebWriter myself http://www.snapfiles.com/get/stoneweb.html

From there on you can still just use a lot of already writen stuff from they internet, with its limits or doing it harder by making/writing it yourself and have more freedom in its looks.

The internet is stuffed with backgrounds,buttons,gifs, animations, java-scrips etc. etc. The sky is almost the limm

Other handy tools to have are a good Photo-editor, and a FTP-program to easily load up your site to the internet.

The suggestion to get someone in is a good one.

Not only am I a clown but also a web designer....

Take a look at the following sites I am proud to have developed.

http://www.pancake.co.uk
http://www.clowns-international.co.uk
http://www.squirtywirty.co.uk
http://www.buzzybuzzy.co.uk

and many more.

If you want details on how I can help you then please get in touch.

Like PancakeTheClown, I am also a web designer. If yoiu need a website for a low cost I can do it for you! At E-Registry.biz you can get a one page website for your business a low cost of $25.00 a year!

What you get for $25.00?

* You will get your own subdomain. Example: http://cllownname.e-registry.biz
* coded description and keyword meta tags (provided by client) to assist search engines in indexing the site
* You will get a one page website selected from our templates (Still creating them)
* Your logo optimized for the web (provided by client)
* Up to three images (provided by client)
* Up to five paragraphs of text
* Contact information posted on the page so customers can reach you directly
* Monthly changes available to the page up to 1 hour of work free.
* Free registration on http://e-registry.biz with the website link to your site.


Eventually I will move the subdomains from e-registry.biz to another site name and this will be a no charge.

If interested email me at webmaster@eregistry.biz

www.clownsareawesome.com
I am a self taught web nerd and here is what I have done. This site is built from the ground up, using only photoshop and html(with a dash of php). I find that not using a wysiwyg editor allows me to create easier to navigate pages.

Here are a few things I look for in a webpage:
1. Ease of navigation: keep in mind that most people will not scroll down. If you have info that you want them to see it is better to have seperate pages navigable from the first page.

2.Ease on the eyes: purely open for interpretation. Keep in mind that while you may like bright, neon colors you might cause people to want to stab out their eyes rather then book you.

3. Pictures: make sure they are good pictures and that they are a size that won't take forever to load

4. Information: this should really be number 1 but I wasn't thinking and I am lazy. Make sure that the information is relevent to yourself and accurate.

5. Need help I can try. Also if anyone likes the design of mine I will work with you to get it made.

I use Freewebs its turned out to be the best site i made & im always working & improveing it

http://www.freewebs.com/willacetheclown/index.htm

I've always said a website is your business card to the World. It's a MUST HAVE in todays times. You can get a FREE Geocities account at www.geocities.com. They work good in a pinch and offer templates as well as a Page Builder assistant that is simply the Best for those not familiar with HTML coding.

Here's one I use for my Character
www.geocities.com/hobouke

~SAM 8-)

I would just like to say that if you are interested I would love to critique webpages for people. I have been around the internet for a long time and in looking at some of these pages and pages of clowns in general I think some help is in order.

If you are interested let me know. I will be as gentle as can be and I will try to give you easy steps to follow in order to do this.

I have a site: www.clownusability.com where I used to do critiques of sites and I would love to bust that out again but focus on clown\entertainer sites alone.

Again, if you are interested, let me know

hey sam that is a grate thing to use a well i made 3 sites useing it very good Geocities & freewebs are the best ive found so far

One problem I have found when I used any of the free sites is that they are not truely free. Most of them have some sort of ad service attached that can actually lead to you advertising for Insane Clown Posse or even your own local competition. They are great when you are starting out but make sure that you agree with the advertising practices of the provider

new and improved site!!!!
www.clownsareawesome.com is updated

Hey all,
I have quickly made up the one page website for entertainers like I said I would.
If you want to look at it, I did it for myself to show you what it can look like.
Goto: http://moe-dum.e-registry.biz/.

Like I said before... A one page site will be only $25.00 a year AND you get entered into e-registry.biz (http://e-registry.biz/) for a year with the link to the website for free.

Very nicely done. I prefer not to quote fees on the Internet though and prefer to actually require the person interested to call and speak with me. As long as we can set it up that way, happy to participate.

How does one proceed with you?