I've learned a few things about making websites over the past few years. I made this one, for example...I'm no web designer or anything, but, there are some very powerful tools available these days, and some web hosting companies offer services that can make your website creation process far less painless than you might imagine.

Note: I did not say totally painless...nor did I say this would be a comprehensive, unbiased overviw. This is how I did it...

Here's a brief outline full of shameless plugs and product placements.

1. Domain Name

you need a domain name, liiiike, saaaay,  freerice.com , or maybe bloggerton.ca
There are a billion, gajillion, fafillion places to register a domain name. Well, at least 143,000,000

It might prove easier to register your domain name at the same place that will host your website. Try dreamhost or doteasy .

Dreamhost offers way way more for way way less, but they can only register .com, .org and .net addresses. If you're looking for a .ca address, Doteasy can do that.

If you like, you can register your .ca domain name with doteasy, and host your website on dreamhost. Little more complicated, but not that hard.

If you decide to register a domain name or host a website with Dreamhost or Doteasy, please tell them I sent you... seriously, we both get free stuff if you do. Seriously.

For Dreamhost , signup with the following promo code: EDHANLEY50OFF (you'll see a place for the promo code during the signup) This code will get you $50 off if you sign up for 1, 2 or 3 years of hosting
or
click here: Dreamhost note! don't use a referral code during signup if you click this link, as it contains the referral info already
or
tell them that ehanley_at_pathcom.com sent you (the '_at_' is an @) during signup

For Doteasy, click this link: Doteasy  and if you also mention www.autorickshaw.ca as your referrer 'buddy' you'll get extra storage space free. Currently 1GB extra storage.

2. Hosting

You need a place to host your site. See Dreamhost and Doteasy links above.   Dreamhost is very hip, super easy to use but is based in L.A. One word: earthquake . Doteasy is based in Canada, in case that's important... but, Dreamhost is 'green' i.e. carbon neutral, in case THAT helps you decide...plus Dreamhost offers a ton of stuff Doteasy doesn't, like free spam filtering, one click installs of many popular softwares (see below). Doteasy has been very reliable, though... Dreamhost can be cheaper.

3. Making a website

You need to take a long, difficult and boring college course in Hypertext Markup Language (html) programming, then buy some expensive software.

Kidding.

I use an open source content management system (CMS) called Joomla ! (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the name...). If you can update your myspace/facebook page, you're already on your way.

Dreamhost and Doteasy both make it easy to install Joomla. Dreamhost via their famed 'one-click installs' (which include a bunch of other software, like blog software etc..click here to see the list), and Doteasy will install it for you. Dreamhost is a little more hands on, and more fun...

Learning to use Joomla (or any CMS software) initially isn't all that easy...to be honest, the learning curve is pretty steep, but it can be done.  

autorickshaw.ca , ed-hanley.com and dylanbell.ca are all Joomla sites I've had a hand in. I run autorickshaw.ca and ed-hanley.com, and I got Dylan started on his site, showing him the ropes initially. He's kicking butt on his own now, so...

4. Let me know if you'd like some help getting started.

contact me