I need a portfolio website, And I'll pay for it Options

[orcone]

Morning gents.

I'm looking at the possibility of having an online resume to display graphical work.
As such, I'll need to be able to update it over time. When I say update, I'm ideally picturing being able to edit pages to delete/place new thumbnails of work on a page and update a description. I'll be designing the site myself in terms of shape, colour and images. Here's a rough idea of what it'll look like:
http://img397.imageshack.us/img397/1275/webpagecopyiv0.jpg

To put it bluntly, I'll draw the pretty pictures and you make the shit work.

How much would you charge for this service? Getting the website all done and handling the transfer to a host and domain registration? I'll pay for the hosting and domain myself, but frankly have no idea how to even get a website up and running. And that's where it gets retarded. I know basic HTML and understand how websites work, but not how they get up on my browser and how to keep them there!
I'll be needing a lot of bandwidth to host the site and my own files.

Depending on your price and your portfolio I may give you a bell later on down the track to organise this to go ahead.
But do any of you see a problem with this sort of site?

[superfireydave]

Hosting and domain is about $150 a year (that's for decent sort of stuff).
The HTML for your site is fairly simple, wouldn't be more than $200.
The content management is probably going to take the most time though (getting it so you can upload pictures and schtuff).

[orcone]

I'm not sure what you mean by content management. I'm assuming it's to do with some sort of uploading system? Where I just select a file from my PC, upload it and BAM site makes it into another thumbnail on a page with a description I can write underneath it?

Because as nice as that sounds, it doesn't sound very dynamic in case I want to change the design of my site later down the track.

[superfireydave]

Pretty much. I assumed that's what you meant by this: "As such, I'll need to be able to update it over time. When I say update, I'm ideally picturing being able to edit pages to delete/place new thumbnails of work on a page and update a description". I assumed you'd want the ability to add/edit/remove portfolio items, edit pages, and all that sorta stuff.

Unless all you want is to know what bit of HTML to edit, which makes it much more simple.

[orcone]

I'm a visual person, so as such all these ideas I have will prove either fruitful or impossible once I begin designing the site.

So expect most of my demands as they are to disappear. I'm currently a client with no idea what he wants. Just the realisation that I need something.

[GTAV6]

I'm not sure what you mean by content management. I'm assuming it's to do with some sort of uploading system? Where I just select a file from my PC, upload it and BAM site makes it into another thumbnail on a page with a description I can write underneath it?

Because as nice as that sounds, it doesn't sound very dynamic in case I want to change the design of my site later down the track.

that's very loosely it, orcone. unfortunately, that's kinda the whole point of a cms - it allows to the owner to quickly and easily upload/alter selected areas of content without fubar-ing the rest of the site...
if you're wanting control of the overall site design, you'll need more than just the basics of html+css, as well as a complete familarity with how whoever built the site in the first place.

i'm quite confident sfd's more than capable of presenting you with a design that's well commented and give you a run-through on how/where it's all put together, in such a way that you'd be able to take over total control using a text editor and ftp - but in all fairness to him, the cost could start to climb quite dramatically, given the additional time factor needed to do all that.

i'd be more than happy to put your design together as a website, but i have my doubts as to whether you'd be able to make head nor tail of my sub-standard coding, even for something as simple as uploading new pics, let alone altering the design... and on the strength of that, i'd be somewhat reluctant to offer (much as i'd like to).

This post has been edited by GTAV6: Jan 9 2009, 07:01 PM

[F117_Nighthawk]

$150/y would be an overkill superfireydave,
I assume there wouldn't be too many things to update to worry about a CMS at the moment so stick with html / css.

$100 a year with an included domain and too many features that you proberly wont even know what to do with them can be found here: http://www.servage.net/

If the website is coded correctly, small changes with updates etc. will be very easy to learn

[superfireydave]

$150/y would be an overkill superfireydave

For quality hosting and a domain?
Not really.

You can go less expensive, and get average servers, or you can go more expensive and get average servers. However, $150 is about the norm for good quality hosting + domain.

[F117_Nighthawk]

Depends what you need,
for $70-$80 you can get a better quality connection than paying $200+ for things you don't need. Just need to know what hosting to go for.

[GTAV6]

Depends what you need

exactly :o)
in orcone's case, he's wanting the site to handle hi-res grahical stuff, so he'd be wanting decent storage space and bandwidth - both of which would increase the cost, even without taking quality and support into consideration.

[Sneddo]

I'd suggest using a CMS even if is just going to essentially be manual changes to the content. That way if you decide that is the way you want to go it is much easier to migrate. Plus, it eliminates the need to either pay someone to update, or learn how to update your own site, when you should just be concentrating on the actual content of the site.

For my choice of CMS, I use SilverStripe (Demo site). You can login to the admin section and have a play around with it. I've found it to be the only CMS I've actually enjoyed using, and it seems easy enough to use even for people who have not used a CMS before. Skinning it is very customisable as you can see from some of the sites using SS, so if you do change your mind a bit along the way it is simple enough to cater for this.

I think it would be worth at least trying a few CMS systems and see what you think of them, it will help you decide exactly what you want out of your site. A few of the better known ones:
Joomla
Drupal

Others

[Athiril]

Depends what you need

exactly :o)
in orcone's case, he's wanting the site to handle hi-res grahical stuff, so he'd be wanting decent storage space and bandwidth - both of which would increase the cost, even without taking quality and support into consideration.

'decent' storage and bandwidth these days is ludicrous large though.

[F117_Nighthawk]

Depends what you need

exactly :o)
in orcone's case, he's wanting the site to handle hi-res grahical stuff, so he'd be wanting decent storage space and bandwidth - both of which would increase the cost, even without taking quality and support into consideration.

Cheap hosting still gives you 100gb+, way more then he'll need. He doesn't need to pay $150+ for 1b of storage...

This post has been edited by F117_Nighthawk: Jan 11 2009, 03:47 PM

[GTAV6]

ah... well, i always stand to be corrected :o)

in this instance, i was comparing with here in nz - i have 100mb @ 4gb/month, which costs me a bit over NZ$213 per year, including a 15% discount for paying anually and domain rego.
and that's a fairly average sort of price for what i have. i found that the outfits who boasted more for less usually had some sort of catch built in somewhere within the fineprint...

[Girvo]

I'd suggest using a CMS even if is just going to essentially be manual changes to the content. That way if you decide that is the way you want to go it is much easier to migrate. Plus, it eliminates the need to either pay someone to update, or learn how to update your own site, when you should just be concentrating on the actual content of the site.

For my choice of CMS, I use SilverStripe (Demo site). You can login to the admin section and have a play around with it. I've found it to be the only CMS I've actually enjoyed using, and it seems easy enough to use even for people who have not used a CMS before. Skinning it is very customisable as you can see from some of the sites using SS, so if you do change your mind a bit along the way it is simple enough to cater for this.

I think it would be worth at least trying a few CMS systems and see what you think of them, it will help you decide exactly what you want out of your site. A few of the better known ones:
Joomla
Drupal

Others

ModX > *

[superfireydave]

Depends what you need

exactly :o)
in orcone's case, he's wanting the site to handle hi-res grahical stuff, so he'd be wanting decent storage space and bandwidth - both of which would increase the cost, even without taking quality and support into consideration.

Cheap hosting still gives you 100gb+, way more then he'll need. He doesn't need to pay $150+ for 1b of storage...

Feel free to point me in the direction of that sort of hosting, that's actually decent, and isn't a load of crap. I've yet to find an Aussie provider who'll do anything similar to that who isn't a joke.

[F117_Nighthawk]

As I've already posted above, you can get quality hosting with heaps of features for only $100/y at http://www.servage.net/

They also have a location based in Australia, I've used about 6 accounts in total with them.

[superfireydave]

Sorry, I thought we were talking AU based hosting.
Servage's claims, much like most US based hosting, are grossly inflated but decent generally value.

[Girvo]

Besides, I think you need a dynamic flash website.


Dave should make you one :D

[F117_Nighthawk]

Sorry, I thought we were talking AU based hosting.
Servage's claims, much like most US based hosting, are grossly inflated but decent generally value.

They still have offices and servers based in Australia, so they are not completely overseas based.
I haven't had a single problem with them ever since I created my first account, one of the most reliable hosting companies I know of.

Besides, I think you need a dynamic flash website.


Dave should make you one :D

That would make it even harder to update content though.

This post has been edited by F117_Nighthawk: Jan 11 2009, 09:34 PM