Blog

Do you want to build a web site or a web application?

Alternative Methods for Building Web Sites

If all you want is a web site displaying information about your company, consider these alternatives for building and hosting your web site yourself:

1. Google Sites. Some folks consider it “simplistic” but it is sure to grow in scope and sophistication.
2. Microsoft Small Business.
3. Yahoo Small Business.
4. A comprehensive list of other services available.  These provide the “iron” & the tools and you can build the services using standard web technologies.

There are also a number of firms that will do it for you for a fee. Search for the words “website creation service”. Among the more interesting ones we found:

1. IRCUSA. Prices vary from $250 (1 page) to $3000 (~12 pages).
2. Register.com. $12.95/month. Cheap but ugly.
3. Richard Waller. About $1000 for a 6-page web site.
4. GoDaddy. About $65/month.

(If you research any of the options further, or find an interesting new one, please post a comment and let us know. Thanks in advance.)  In any case, you will need to come up with what the web site will say, unless you want to hire a marketing company to do it with you.

Building a web application

A web application is more than a web site. If your users log in to make purchases, to view their portfolio, to communicate with their friends, they are using an application that they interact with.

This post is about how to build a simple web application for not much money, using the Google App Engine. You can build web sites using these techniques but you may not want the hassle. The goal is to aquaint you with resources available on the internet for building and hosting a web application. Quantitecture web site as well as Early Stage IT web site were built using the techniques described here. We request that, if you build your site based on these techniques, you include a reference to this blog on your site. We can undertake custom development of features especially for your site. Please contact us to discuss details.

Caveat emptor. Quantitecture or Early Stage IT or the author of this blog shall not be held responsible for any expenses you incur as a result of using these techniques.

Getting Started

Assuming you decided you wanted maximum flexibility in building a web site and didn’t want to use one of the methods listed above, you will need:

1. Download Google App Engine. It’s free. If you will be doing any significant programming to power your web site, best to pick up a book on Python since Google App Engine is programmed in that language.
2. This is the most formidable part of the exercise for a newbie: Downloading and configuring Eclipse to use as the Integrated Development Environment. Also install “Web Development Tools” while you’re at it — they include a nice HTML editor although you won’t need most of the other components. Strictly speaking, Eclipse is optional and you can just edit the files in Notepad. Using Eclipse makes the job easier, though. It’s free.
3. A name for your site. We use GoDaddy as the domain registrar but their values could compel you to look elsewhere. You can type in a name and see if it is available. Try others if it is not. You can spend a lot of money on a web site name but with some creativity, you may be able to get one for $10/yr or so.
4. A logo. You will need this in GIF or JPEG formats. You can spend a lot of money on a logo. We built the Quantitecture logo using GoogleFont. It’s free.
5. A FavIcon (optional). See those little icons that show up on browser tabs? They’re FavIcons. We used Microsoft Office to create the little red Q on the Quantitecture web site and converted it to the right format using a FavIcon creation tool. We used ColorPic to match the color of the Q to the red in our logo. It’s free.

Once you have gone through Hello World example for Google App Engine, preferably using Eclipse, and tested it on your local machine, upload the code and see it run on the web.

This would be a good time to follow uploading instructions to connect your domain (www.example.com) to the uploaded code. The folks at Google wrote the instructions with a great deal of precision. They should be followed meticulously. They work!

Once you have accomplished this and can see your Hello World application connected to www.example.com, please contact us via the link on this blog. We can give you a starter set of files to get your web site off the ground.

Changing the layout

If you want a different layout than what our starter files give you, you can change it. The magic to controlling layout of your web site is in CSS. You will need to change the CSS that is included in the starter files. A good book on CSS is worth the investment if you will be going this route. You do not need to change the HTML if you want to change the layout. Here is a web site that offers many possible layouts for you to use.

If you have questions

Any questions should be sent by e-mail and will be responded to as time permits. If you need a prompt response, please call us for our per-hour rates.