Building my own wepages

I originally hired my tech savvy nephew to build and upload web pages for me and he did a great job. But as his design business grew, he had less time for the changes I wanted to make. So I got it into my head to build webpages by myself. Hahahahah!

I began on my Windows NetBook, working in a program called Xara (www.xara.com) and this was working out pretty well. I was able to get a feel for colors and layout that I prefer. But when I began to struggle with details, such as getting my twitter feed to appear on the home page, things slowed way down.

A friend of ours was staying the weekend at our house and he saw me tinkering with the program, and heard me muttering under my breath because it wasn't intuitive in the least. He piped up with "If you did this on a Mac, it would be easy." I looked up. "Wait, what?". He smiled and repeated. He also succinctly added some more information about how Macs were designed for the creative mind and that clearly I'd find it more straightforward than Windows. I turned to my husband, the IT guy in our household. He said "I never took to the Mac when I had one, but you might prefer it." and in the next instant, he had purchased one for me.

All stop on webpage development while I waited for the Mac to arrive. Finally, it came. I had to get the hang of it, unlearn Windows techniques, and download updates. First, a disappointment to overcome. Apple had stopped including iWeb on new Macs with Lion iOS. So I searched for an alternative webpage development program. Found several and settled on Sandvox. It was the least expensive and seemed to offer what I needed. Download was easy, using it was easy, and when I got stick a few times, I just re-watched the helpful video.

In a matter of a few days of random tinkering, I learned how to easily add a Book Store, include a Contact Me page, create original jpeg icons and link them to the appropriate sites. I uploaded photos, organized everything in to a pleasing array. The hardest part was setting up the host site, which I already had but hadn't messed with in the year since my nephew had last set it up. My husband helped me with that part thru trial and error, but Sandvox will help you set up a brand new host without difficulty. Worth every penny of the $50 it cost me.

Check out the results of this odyssey at www.elizabethashtree.com

I would love to read comments or add links to experiences of others who have gone on similar webpage-building quests.