Website needed for College Portfolio

JavaBeans

Computer Science and sw development student here..I think next term, 2nd year, we'll be advised to create our own websites, to show off our limited portfolios,

what kind of a route should I go down, I might start this before we're told to, but just wondering, obviously the site will not be generating any traffic, so what kind of hosting or software package should i be looking at, thanks

business bloomer

JavaBeans wrote: »

Computer Science and sw development student here..I think next term, 2nd year, we'll be advised to create our own websites, to show off our limited portfolios,

what kind of a route should I go down, I might start this before we're told to, but just wondering, obviously the site will not be generating any traffic, so what kind of hosting or software package should i be looking at, thanks

Hey, you should go with Google Sites/Apps as it gives you free hosting and nice free tools to build your own website. I use it for my clients.

However, you'd only get limited use of coding - I don't know what you actually need.

By the way I'd go with the "free" route, much better at this stage.

Trojan

I wouldn't go the Google Sites route without investigating the limitations further.

Some hosting companies offer free hosting accounts (equivalent to paid accounts) for students - try talking to those.

There's plenty of free (open source) software you can create and run your site on - given that you're doing CS/software you'd probably like to build something decent - install a XAMP/WAMP/LAMP stack and play around with a few things like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc, locally on your own machine before deciding where to host and what CMS to choose.

Spunog UIE

you should also check with your computer society/club they might be able to set up suitable hosting for you. Might be a good way to get some help too.

JavaBeans

cheers lads, good tips there , thanks !

HairMonster

I would avoid any "free" hosting, simply because they include advertising and it doesn't look professional.

You can get decent hosting and a domain name for less that €40 per year.

lukegjpotter

With your college e-mail address you should be able to get a domain name and hosting for one year for free, keep re-using this and enjoy. Then it's like €40 per year, you'll be an employed computer dude so you won't miss €40.

HairMonster

Sorry, I didn't realise I couldn't name a provider, but the portion of my email that was removed provided a lot more information than that! There are providers that you can get hosting and domain registration for less than €40 that come with free 1-click installs for 100s of systems including Wordpress, Joomla, and other blogging, CMS, e-commerce, photo-galleries etc.

If you go for a free hosting, you won't get any of these included and will have to install from scratch. This can be complicated in some cases, and thats assuming your free hosting provides databases or support for PHP, which chances are it won't. For under €40 for a year, the extras and the professional appearance are well worth it IMO.

tricky D

Just a thought, but given that you have Java in your username, do you intend doing much Java stuff? To my limited knowledge on Java matters, hosting it is a more complicated and more expensive affair than 'regular' hosting.