Yo, Dreamer here, and I'm gonna be straight with ya'll. Last year in high-school, I took a class on website design, and worked in Dreamweaver from the Creative Suite thing by Adobe. I was top of my class. I am currently having a hard time dealing with college, seeing as I can't juggle it, my job, and stay awake at the same time. Why are these two things related? Well, my mother wants me to design websites for her and her boyfriend. No cost, so it kind of seems like a rip-off, but she's my mother and she has payed for way too many things of mine. However, lots of people will see these websites, and if I do a good job with them it could mean I could have some potential of doing something professionally without a damn degree from the college I am currently failing at... Which I never thought possible since I have no directly profitable skills. Now onto the problem at hand. I don't have any of the CS programs. (Dreamweaver and Photoshop specifically.) As is probably obvious, those programs are insanely expensive... and I am extremely inept at computers and don't know how to get the free copies that everyone seems to have... So... Any help regarding this situation, from advice on making a website, to instructions on how to get the programs would be amazing, or even any advice regarding anything else I mentioned, would be highly appreciated. Thanks. Signed- ~The man with way too many OC's~ Dreamer
I dunno, maybe if your mom is willing and able to invest in at least part of the cost for those programs for you in return for you designing the website for her, that could work. Maybe see if some other family would pitch in as an early birthday present sort of thing, if possible? Also, aren't there Trial versions of those programs? Maybe you can design a website or two before the trial expires. You post says your mom wants "websites" - plural, so she'll have to understand that it takes time. If the ones you get done do become profitable (ad revenue or whatever, you claim lots of people will see them), I imagine your mom would be more inclined to help invest in the programs for you to do more with it. Another thing you can do is see if your college has some sort of student discount code for those programs. I imagine some colleges would.
We're talking 400+ dollars a program. Again, no idea if there are trials, because I am asking if there are and where I could find them, if not a way to get the whole thing for less than 700. 2 websites. County college.
I'm a pro at getting free software. Hey, I'll tell you what. Add me on Skype at redfaceofawesomeness and I will help you go through the steps of getting it and installing it.
Dreamweaver is a complete waste of money IMO especially for someone who is learning, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Doesn't follow W3C standards, unclean code, creates lazy development habits, the only thing good about it really is convienent auto-completion and some other aspects of the text editor is fairly nice (minus the WYSIWYG parts, don't even bother). Honestly if you know how to code, and you should if you want to get employed somewhere; relying on IDE's is not what employers like to see -- all you really need is Notepad++ and/or Bluefish (has decent auto-completion if that's your thing) and is what you should have learned on in HS...(personal gripe with schools teaching people IDE's before raw coding). I know my post isn't necessarily helpful to your specific 'predicament', but help yourself a bit more for your own sake, if that was your first web-design class don't rely Dreamweaver for the rest of your journey because then you've already lost.
Well... I don't know how to code, and really... I don't have a source to learn from other than looking things up on google as I need them. It wasn't actually my first one, but the only other one was in 6th grade, using notepad. Like, basic notepad available on every old PC, and I don't remember anything from it anyway. Your post wasn't very helpful, no, but if you could tell me about some of this stuff a bit more specifically, or how I could go about it, it could be very helpful. Really all I know is what I would be able to remember from the Dreamweaver layout (meaning what things are, how they work, etc. We did work primarily in the code half of Dreamweaver, using the click and drop aspects only to get the code we didn't know into the writing for us.) So... and you say I'm lost for relying on dreamweaver? I completely agree. Everyone needs somewhere to start. Artists start on pencil and lined paper. Mathmaticians still need to learn 2+2 before they can learn a^2+b^2=c^2. The greatest architecht could very well have started with tinker-toys. It's not how you start, it's how you choose to utilize what you're given. I was given Dreamweaver, which is a fantastic place to start. I plan to utilize it till I can progress to a better platform. It may only be a week so I can remember what I've learned, which is why I'm trying to get it for free... Anyway, thanks for the info, I'd appreciate a bit more of it. ^.^
Depends what aspect of web development you are intending to go into, or what your mother is looking for in a site. There's so many of aspects...but again, you're learning so it's hard to jump in like this. But I'll go on since you asked. If it's just front-end design, like themes and whatnot then yes you can use things like Dreamweaver or Notepad++, as you're just writing HTML and CSS. Or does she need a working custom-built site from scratch? Because at that point the tools and skills needed to know leap up many levels and cover server programming (PHP), database management (SQL), page scripting like with JavaScript, etc, the first two are what really makes websites "work"...it's stuff where one needs years of experience at least. You can only go so far with just HTML, which isn't very. You're limited to static pages that don't really do anything. So most people don't really choose build dynamic websites from scratch by themselves unless you're insane. Realistically you would buy and work on a platform, one example is Wordpress, which is popular for professional or hobbyist blogging but today is used for everything, and it will work out of the box, for the most part. Then you can concentrate on designing your site's appearance instead and not worry as much about the underworkings. They give you all the templates you need and you can edit the code that's already available, which is why I was stressing that Dreamweaver may not be worth it for what you are trying to do and actually could make it more difficult. Simply because platforms like Wordpress, or even like here, vBulletin have their own interface for typing HTML and CSS code with which Dreamweaver most likely will screw up in one way or another. My personal preference though is I don't like to edit code directly in the browser, so that's why I mentioned Notepad++ or Bluefish because they're simple, free and effective. They try to make it more easy without you needing to spend a crapton, which you shouldn't. Then there's the whole realm of managing the logistics of the site; who do you pick for hosting, what kind of server do you need, how expensive of a server do you need, those questions are hard to answer without knowing exactly what your wants and needs are and what sort of customer base you are delivering to. But anyway I hope that helps a little more with putting things into perspective, sorry if I came across a bit nasty. I shouldn't be typing posts like this, while doing schoolwork at 2AM xD. Take care, and good luck.
