by Ramrider » Fri May 04, 2007 12:23 pm
1. Getting a domain name is a doddle. No, you probably won't own it, but you'll be able to renew the lease on it when it's due to expire. They don't cost that much, either. I got mine through UKReg.com, but presumably you'll be better off with a local company, just do a Google search for Canadian or US domain companies. My domain (which is a '.co.uk') cost me £5 for two years' lease, so it's hardly extortionate. '.com's tend to be smidge more expensive, but not by that much.
I don't think Ryan owns Seibertron.com, either. If I remember rightly, I think he once said something about long-term leasing it; paying for it about ten or twelve years in advance.
2. No, you don't need special editing software or anything. You can get WYSIWYG programs, like Microsoft Frontpage for example, that theoretically make the job easier, but personally I've never used any of 'em. All you really need, you already have - Notepad, WordPad, and I believe the later editions of Word can all form HTML files.
I started just by learning some basic HTML, which is surprisingly easy. I had a day off work and decided to research the subject, found "fluffbucket.com" and messed with the tutorials. After just five hours I was randomly trawling the web, and a lot of sites I was looking at and thinking "I can already do better than that". Nowadays I'd actually recommend "w3schools.com" for HTML and CSS tutorials. It's well worth a try; you'll be surprised how quickly you can get into it.
