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How much will a website cost?

© Dianne Reuby

From $0 to infinity! Like many other online or offline activities, you can spend as much or as little as you want to. I started with freeware - there's plenty available. I used free hosting for my first two sites. You can start spending money later, if you want to.

But doesn't "free" mean "rubbish"? Not at all. There are some great freeware programs. So why are they free? Some are a cut-down or "light" version of programs. The programmer hopes that people will like the free version, and pay to upgrade to the full version. Some smaller programs have been created by programmers who wanted a tool for a particular job, and couldn't find one. So they've written their own, and released it for others to use. Some are ad-supported. There are lots of ad-supported programs available, but be cautious. Some are perfectly harmless, and work just like TV ads. Sponsors pay for the program to show their ads.

Others are not so harmless - known as "spywareware" or "scumware", they can check out your system and send info on it to a third party, or invade your system. I use http://www.spychecker.com to see if freeware I'm thinking of trying is OK. I also use Ad-Aware from http://www.lavasoft.com to scan my system for unwanted spywareware. Another reputable spyware remover is SpyBot, http://www.safer-networking.org/ The latest trick spyware authors use is to create "spywareware removal programs" that actually install spywareware. What a nerve! Check if spywareware removal program you're thinking of using is OK here: http://www.netrn.spywareblog

What software do I need?

A browser. If you're reading this, you've got one! The most popular browser is Internet Explorer for Windows, from Microsoft. There are others, and other operating systems. You don't need to download them all, but you will need to make sure your page works in all the main browser programs. You can check online here: http://www.anybrowser.com Another way is to join a webmasters' forum, and ask the other members to look at your page in other browsers. I use http://www.waterloodevelopers.com The final method is with an HTML checker - I use CSE Lite, from http://www.htmlvalidator.com/

A text editor. Don't use a word processor like Word to type your HTML - they often insert charaters charaters that browsers don't like. If you're running Windows, you'll have NotePad installed. Another text editor is NoteTab http://www.notetab.com It has an HTML library, which lets you enter tags by clickiing in the sidebar - very handy! You can also join the mailing list to get help - http://groups.yahoo.notetab/notetab/

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