I’ve recently rebuilt my website. I created the initial one using Microsoft FrontPage. The rebirthed one was created using Dreamweaver. I was comfortable with FrontPage and not too excited about having to learn another HTML editor, although I will concede that Dreamweaver has more advanced features and is better suited to today’s Internet. It would, of course, have been a lot easier to contract an experienced web designer to do it for me but my reasons for choosing to do it myself were not solely due to a restricted budget. I also wanted a better understanding of how websites work in order to be able to assist clients more efficiently when proofreading their websites. It makes more sense for me to edit the page directly rather than copying and pasting blocks of text into various word-processing programs.
I’m not totally happy with the site and it needs a bit more tweaking. I also have plans to add more images and perhaps video but for now, it’s mine and all mine. (Well mostly; I based it on a template). One interesting thing I discovered as a result is that some scripting does not like apostrophes. It replaces them with gobbledegook instead. There is a way around it (depending on the scripting language being used) but perhaps that’s the reason behind missing apostrophes on so many websites.
Jocelyn ‘Toolie®’ Garner has outlined the Top 10 Reasons to Manage Your Own Websites and Blogs. Number 10 on the list is, ‘It’s one less thing to be afraid of’ – and that’s probably the sum of it for me.