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HELP! business website using dotmac?

gusanitoverde

gusanitoverde

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 12, 2003
283
0
Northern California
:confused:
Here is the story:

Guys, recently the company where I work for, lost it’s website.
My boss asked me for any ideas and I proposed to him to use .mac to advertise and inform about our business. Maybe by using the HomePage and Calendar features

Also the church where I attend to, has a website that was made for free, nobody can take care of it or update it, since none of us have any HTML or web-developing experience.

I considered telling my church to use .Mac HomePage, File Sharing and Calendar Features

I called (800) MY APPLE and I was told that “there is no legal problems on advertising your business in .mac, you can do basically whatever you want”

In my research, I noticed that you can make your costume made web pages in Microsoft Word for example and link them to .Mac through your I disk >sites>custom folder, and have them displayed as a reference in your .Mac account. How reachable is this?

No as far as making webpages in a simple way, can I pre-make them in let’s say Microsoft Word and upload them in iDisk?

Last, I would ask for a little help on getting a serious website started, or guide me on how to get started myself to be a little more learned about website developing (my problem is time, I don't have much of it).

Thanks.
 
gusanitoverde said:
:confused:
Here is the story:

Guys, recently the company where I work for, lost it’s website.
My boss asked me for any ideas and I proposed to him to use .mac to advertise and inform about our business. Maybe by using the HomePage and Calendar features

Also the church where I attend to, has a website that was made for free, nobody can take care of it or update it, since none of us have any HTML or web-developing experience.

I considered telling my church to use .Mac HomePage, File Sharing and Calendar Features

I called (800) MY APPLE and I was told that “there is no legal problems on advertising your business in .mac, you can do basically whatever you want”

In my research, I noticed that you can make your costume made web pages in Microsoft Word for example and link them to .Mac through your I disk >sites>custom folder, and have them displayed as a reference in your .Mac account. How reachable is this?

No as far as making webpages in a simple way, can I pre-make them in let’s say Microsoft Word and upload them in iDisk?

Last, I would ask for a little help on getting a serious website started, or guide me on how to get started myself to be a little more learned about website developing (my problem is time, I don't have much of it).

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Embedding links to your .Mac site is very do able. When creating a hyperlink, you just point it to spot where the file is saved in the sites folder. Say your user name is BOB, and the file is TPS.report and the folder you saved it in is REPORTS inside the Sites folder. Link would be: http://homepage.mac.com/BOB/REPORTS/TPS.report

Best way to start out, is take your time, but since you are short on time, get an HTML book, get Dreamweaver (30 trial for free) and maybe use one of the templates they have to make your site.

Question, how many pages, and what information are you going to be displaying? Also, KISS. Know what that means. Keep It Simple Stupid. The best websites are simple, see my Russo's site, not complicated with millions of choices. Take Apples vs. MS, and their websites. Apple has it simple with a few tabs at the top for the major topic areas, then it breaks down from there and its easy to follow. MS, can't find a damn thing, even when using the search.
 
Thank you

I started already, I used MS Word to create the linked webpage, but the pictures (.jpeg images) I added in the page are not showing!!! It just shows empty frames. What do I do?

Also, this happens in my Mac:
When I am working in Homepage, not linking other application pages, but just .Mac applications like adding text of changing words, (usually in Safari) and it takes a long time for .Mac to make any changes.
Sometimes, I finish and publish my work and when I return to view my page, the changes are not showing! It is until I open another browser like I.E., Netscape or Firefox, that I am able to see the changes. I guess it is a web browser problem. Is it really? I noticed that in Windows based computers is the same problem. This is not a new issue, it's been going on since 2 years ago that I tried .Mac for the first time.
 
gusanitoverde said:
I started already, I used MS Word to create the linked webpage, but the pictures (.jpeg images) I added in the page are not showing!!! It just shows empty frames. What do I do?

Also, this happens in my Mac:
When I am working in Homepage, not linking other application pages, but just .Mac applications like adding text of changing words, (usually in Safari) and it takes a long time for .Mac to make any changes.
Sometimes, I finish and publish my work and when I return to view my page, the changes are not showing! It is until I open another browser like I.E., Netscape or Firefox, that I am able to see the changes. I guess it is a web browser problem. Is it really? I noticed that in Windows based computers is the same problem. This is not a new issue, it's been going on since 2 years ago that I tried .Mac for the first time.
Click to expand...

RE: Your second problem, try hitting the refresh button a few times. More often than not, the computer is just referencing the cached version of the site.
 
gusanitoverde said:
I started already, I used MS Word to create the linked webpage, but the pictures (.jpeg images) I added in the page are not showing!!! It just shows empty frames. What do I do?

Also, this happens in my Mac:
When I am working in Homepage, not linking other application pages, but just .Mac applications like adding text of changing words, (usually in Safari) and it takes a long time for .Mac to make any changes.
Sometimes, I finish and publish my work and when I return to view my page, the changes are not showing! It is until I open another browser like I.E., Netscape or Firefox, that I am able to see the changes. I guess it is a web browser problem. Is it really? I noticed that in Windows based computers is the same problem. This is not a new issue, it's been going on since 2 years ago that I tried .Mac for the first time.
Click to expand...
Make sure you tansfer the pictures to the site folder too. You need to make sure your pictures in the same place as when you make the html. Look at the pic, notice that my index.php file, and the PHP and MySQL picture that I use on my site are right next to eachother. The index file is looking for the pictures when someone comes to my site, and the index file is told that they are right next to it in the same folder. You need to keep this same relationship with your files. That when you make your site, and it has pictures, that the pictures stay in the same relationship to eachother. Say if I take that PHP picture and put it in a folder called Pictures. That relationship becomes broken, index looks next to it, doesn't find the file, puts a red X saying that it chould not find the file. But if I change the index file to look into the Pictures folder for the PHP picture, it will find it, and show it. Do you get what I'm saying. Best thing to do is put everything you are working with in a folder. Pics and HTML files. Then if you want to make more folders beyond that like you see in my folder picture for my site, you see that there is phpBB, which is my phpBB2 forum, thats where I store it in relation to the rest of my site.
 

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kingjr3 said:
I just have to ask. Why are you using Word to create web pages?

Can you at least use Frontpage? At least it will help you become acquainted with HTML.
Click to expand...
Or a 30 day trial of Dreamweaver (www.dreamweaver.com). But anyways, he is new to this web thing, needs to know the basics.
 
varmit said:
Or a 30 day trial of Dreamweaver (www.dreamweaver.com). But anyways, he is new to this web thing, needs to know the basics.
Click to expand...
Hi there! This is a great thread! I am very happy with what I have learned so far just from reading this thread up to now. Thank you gusanitoverde for starting this thread.

I noticed that some have asked gusanitoverde about using MS Word for web pages. Well, I downloaded the Dreamweaver trial program and tried it out. I could not understand a thing in Dreamweaver. That is way over my head right now. So are you all ready for a laugh?... I am using AppleWorks to create web pages, and sometimes TextEdit. Hey, it works and I am able to get the results I want (most of the time, sorta), yet the process is slow and somewhat frustrating. I have also created some pages in .Mac HomePage using their defaults and also tried importing some of my own pages into .Mac HomePage. So far, I am not able to get what I want, especially with graphic files. I am not even sure how to explain. Most of the time the graphics don't show up at all. Sometimes they show up but not how I wanted them to, i.e. too small or not aligned correctly with caption and other text.

When I open my pages in Safari that are on my hard drive they appear as I want, but when I transfer to .Mac and then access them, they are not as I want. I don't know any more specifics and I know this is not much to go on, but does anyone have any ideas about possible corrections and solution?

Besides Dreamweaver what other programs are you all using? I would like something easy; easy to use and easy to understand.
 
gusanitoverde said:
You guys are great. Thank you. And yes, I am totally new to this. Word has been the only program that I could use to do this for now, and also the only program I'm acquainted to.

Here is what I did:
http://homepage.mac.com/job.arroyo.desk/Menu1.html

Thanks!
Click to expand...
I suggest that you don't use spaces for your files. When I go onto the next page from your menu1 page to your Business page, it puts %20 for all the spaces, which comes back as funny looking. Short names are better, maybe just name the file GMI.
 
I don't even use WYSIWYG's anymore, I can never end up with what I want. I just edit source with good 'ol TextWrangler :) .

As for using MSWord to output HTML, I'm not really a fan. The source of it is horribly ugly and bloated (hmmm, remind us of another MS product?).
 
Starting Simple

Ugh - please don't subject new web designers to Dreamweaver. Heck, I sat in on a 10-session course being held at my workplace (for fun to learn a new tool) and never did get the hang of it. Not that I'd want all the junk code it produces if I did get it.

AppleWorks is a great way to get started. Create your buttons and things in Draw or Paint, and bring it all over into Word Processing, which can be saved as HTML. It will create the folder with the .html file and the graphics files in it.

Then, as you want to do more and more things (like make a "mouseover" event or remove the borders around pictures), you'll slowly learn how to go into the code and make those changes. Eventually, you may begin to do everything directly in the code (like I now do).

After all, web pages are basically word processing documents (in which you can have tables). So what better way to get a good feel for what they are than to learn them by creating them *in* word processing applications?

Gusanit - you can also purchase a domain name (like www.groman.com) from www.godaddy.com and have them forward it to the Groman page you set up. Your pages reside on your iDisk, but the outside public doesn't have to see your .mac web address on business cards, etc.

Good luck!
 
YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!!!

My website got "hacked" someone made a link to a lawyer's firm, in the text where it reads "our funeral home" I thought .Mac was secure. That means that someone had to get into my iDisk. Right? This is... interesting, rather delicious... I kind of get the impression that someone is pushing me to learn a lesson on how feeble basic web development could be. What a way to get a welcome to web development! Any ideas on how could this happened?

Theory #1 Someone broke in to my Mac (not likely)
Theory #2 Someone broke into my PC at work (likely)
Theory #3 Someone broke into my iDisk (very likely)

I will keep you posted. :confused:
 
I am quite confused...

I want to get home to my Mac. I am trying to find out if anyone "hacked" or if is just a PC problem from my comouter at work.


I will keep posting. Thank you so much.
 
gusanitoverde said:
Theory #3 Someone broke into my iDisk (very likely)
Click to expand...
Actually, that is very not likely, unless you gave your iDisk (.Mac) user name and password to someone.
 
The truth about this matter

Please read, and at the end I have another question for you. Thanks.

As I write to you. It feels like one of those times (very rare occasions) if something went wrong and you wished that you had a chance to go back and not pass through it, and your wish was granted.

Yesterday, I know it was dramatic to express the “hacking”, and it sort of happened. But not to the extent that I thought. However, if there is something I learned out of this situation was to be covered up, and not to be naive. Any malicious attack could happen to you.

The order of events as it happened:

Sunday night:
I was showing the web, page to my brother and sister-in-law. Everything fine.

Monday morning:
The web page I constructed in my business had a link to another business. I freaked out, since I needed to report to my boss about the advancements on the page.

I called Apple and there was no support, since my .Mac account is in trial. And even when I was transferred to Apple care, I was transferred to the .Mac support from there and jus a recording came out that said to drop an e-mail. (that was frustrating).

Now thank God, there was a nice gentleman at the Apple store in Pasadena that took the time to talk to me for about 15 minutes explaining to me of what might could have happened. He told me that most likely the problem was with my PC. He said that the way that this hackers work to steal passwords and user names, is by recording your keystrokes as you type. He advised me to run anti-spyware software in my PC to verify if during the upload of the pages there was any malicious hacker. I still asked him if there was any possibility that .Mac or my Mac at Home might have been “hacked” and he affirmed that it was not likely. In fact if just in case I wanted to run anti-spyware in OS X, there are a few sites which claim that do have such software, but those are not popular at all, since there is no business for them. (I am so glad to have a Mac!)

By the afternoon time, things started to get very confusing, I had some people checking my webpage and they could not see anything wrong, or any of what I was seeing.

Still, in the windows machine at my job, I run anti-spyware from yahoo, and found quite a bit of “bundled” advertising spywares. I even found a “BackWeb Downloader” which I have been investigating what is it about. I assume and hope that a personal hacking never took place, but one of these softwares, makes my PC highlight certain words and links them into certain websites that relate to the topic that the word pertains to. For example, when my web page read “our funeral home” the highlight would link you to “funeral **.com”

I got a good lesson about this. I have firewalls both in my PC at work and my Mac at home. At last now, I could say thank God, false alarm. But how ugly it feels that you finalized a web page and your work and personal information on your “server” gets attacked or taken advantage of. It feels like if someone broke in to your house.

Thank you for all your replies. I have learned so much in only one week.

Now my question to you:

My boss sees a great disadvantage of just using .Mac for our business web page. First, we have no domain, and second we will not appear at all in search engines. I was quite interested in what was posted recently by one of you, stating that maybe we could get the domain and a page linking to our webpage at .Mac. Any idea on where I could get good service for an economic amount? I was looking at yahoo.com web hosting. And also, how could we get back just the name of the domain that we lost? Since if we sign up, lets say, with yahoo, it will show up like our desired name is taken.

Once again, I am very happy to belong to this community. Thank you all for your support.
 
Godaddy

I have an ed-related web site (still in the works, but you can look at it) at:

http://www.xmoose.net

When you go there, you're actually on a .mac page, but the url is "hidden" in the address bar. Now, when you run your mouse over buttons, you can see the actual ".mac" address that you'll be going to, but the address bar continues to show the address you were directed from "http://www.xmoose.net". Take a peak and see if it will work for you.

If it will, I went through www.godaddy.com. I know the name sounds goofy, but the entire process of ordering the domain name and setting it up to redirect to my .mac page and keep it *hidden* in the address bar was quite painless.

(Unlike the original company that I got ".org" from, which then wanted me to pay $50 to redirect it for a year!!!!!!!)

Enjoy!
 
I use www.no-ip.com for domain names. They give you the ability to link right to .Mac, like my russo's page which is on .Mac. http://homepage.mac.com/varmittang www.no-ip.com also keeps stats for redirections so I can see how many people have gone to Russosorchardlanefarm.com, while I can go to the my .Mac name to view it and not run up the amount of people that have seen it. Picture of No-ip interface, and stats.
 

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