Website

[Dror Levi]

I am looking to replace my website that does not look that bed www.nostalgicframes.com.
This website is a flash base and takes some time for it to load a movies.
I even had potential clients that complained about it.
I would love to have a website that the main page is my video gallery from vimeo.
I have tried word press with tubepress and it does not work (technically) .As well that it is a blog base and not a website base. More then that I am not the guy to program word press and change the layout.
Any suggestion for a friendly user website that I will be able to create a video gallery from vimeo movies since the vimeo widget does not cut it for me.

[Chip Thome]

Press75.com|Exceptional WordPress Themes

[Corey Graham]

Originally Posted by Chip Thome

Press75.com|Exceptional WordPress Themes

I'd agree that it's highly advantageous to stick with WordPress. A common misconception is that it's only for blogs. In my "real" job, I design and develop tons of WordPress sites, almost none of which look/function like a blog.

[Dror Levi]

Thank you Chip.
that's what I was looking for.

[Nicholas Valentine]

You might also want to check out ThemeForest

[Chip Thome]

Cory's right Dror, Wordpress is a content management system. What content you select for it to manage is up to you.

I just finished customizing a prebuilt theme for my brother's company's website. My website creation skills I would rate at novice. So it took a bit to get my feet wet and then change the look and feel to what we wanted from the original Wordpress theme that we bought.

The prebuilt themes do all the "heavy lifting" and what I did was really nothing more than "tweaking" it.

This is his site now:

SavingsPath Inc. | Spend Management Solutions

This was the theme we bought and began with:

Minimal Theme | Just another WordPress weblog

[Roger Van Duyn]

Chip,

That's a nice job you did for your brother's site. I like WordPress. You get a lot for the little it costs, and there is so much help online for it. Finding a good theme that could be customized was the key for me.

[Chip Thome]

I was real surprised at the help section Elegant Themes offers it's subscribers. There are a number of advisers who seem to take turns at answering the questions people toss up there. I must say I found the answers to half of my questions, already asked and answered in their forums.

I put it up on a server I had an account with and just played around until I got it right. Because it was on a subdomain, it didn't really matter how long it took. When we were ready for "prime time" it was kill the sub domain and then load the site on his server.

Being a novice at web design skills it was fun to see the "tweaks" take shape. That also was an incentive to continue on, tweaking my fool head off. :-) I made the alterations on my desktop and then uploaded the pages/files to see the results. When I was all done tweaking I had the entire site in a folder on my desktop so all that had to be done was upload it to his server. It did appear I could have "tweaked" files on the server, but figured out real quick if it didn't work so good, I was kinda screwed. :-)

I built one site for myself and another for a friend using Dreamweaver before this. Both took about a zillion hours and didn't look anywhere near as polished. When I do another for myself, it most likely will be another Wordpress themed site.

[Chris Bryan]

This is an interesting conversation. I used a BluDomain template for my website for videography and now since it is Flash-Based it won't play on iPhones or iPads. I also can't send direct links to specific pages of the site. My parents are wedding photographers and they used Big Black Bag, but get charged something like $40/month.

What are the advantages of WordPress over BluDomain or BigBlackBag? Do you have to set up your own hosting? What kind of cost would I be looking at? Thanks!

[Roger Van Duyn]

Hello Chris,

I just use inexpensive Yahoo small business web hosting, and about a year ago they added support for WordPress for free. I had been using Yahoo's free web creation software, but WordPress is much better. I set up the domain name for my site with Yahoo when I started my business in the summer of 2009, so the domain was already in place for WordPress. I log onto my Yahoo business account, and go to the tab for WordPress.

As you probably surmised, I don't know a whole lot about creating web sites. My own site is the first I've ever done, and it came out okay for me just dinkin' around. Of course, I have been reading a little, even picked up an old version of WordPress for Dummies at a garage sale.

Hope some real expert might chime in who can help you more. One thing I will add, is that it is EASY to embed videos on a WordPress site.

[Chip Thome]

I'll take a whack at explaining this.

The site your parents have is a whole pre-conceived and built packsge, most likely, that includes hosting, design and maybe even domain name. Those are real slick to get someone up fast and still give them a polished and professional look. They are also very good for someone who doesn't want to have much to do with their site, other than field the responses from it. I have a photog buddy who uses a similar set up and he is very happy with his, and also doesn't want to try and build one out either.

If you bought a "template" for your site, that is akin to getting a "theme" to use with Wordpress. Both require hosting on a server in order to be seen on the net.

Adobe Flash is animation software that converts the imagery you see into basically a video file that needs a player in order to view. Because Apple is pushing it's H.264, they had decided to exclude Flash technology from the apps that run on their devices. So the easiest way to describe a Flash site is it's a bunch of video clips.

Wordpress is a content management system. It originally was designed to be blog software and needed to "manage" all the blog entries and comments/postings. So when you install Wordpress on a hosting account, at the heart of Wordpress is a MySQL database to hold and catalog all the "content" that you read or view on the site.

A Wordpress "theme" is just the look, layout and navigation. What you see and read, is the "content". Wordpress is the "meat" behind all this that glues it all together and let's you access whatever you want.

On a scale of ease to get up and running, what you and your parents already have is the easiest. That is assuming your "template" comes with hosting etc.

The next going down the scale of ease would be a Wordpress theme and Wordpress, or HTML pre-packaged site on a hosting account you set up independently.

The least easy of the pile is starting from scratch and building everything yourself.

[Chris Davis]

WordPress = Vegas Movie Studio
Making your own website = "Uncle Bob" wedding video.

Are you a professional business? Then quit messing around with this stuff and pay a professional to create an effective website for you.

I just think it's funny how we'll all bash the DIY video producers, yet follow that exact same pattern of behavior with the first and potentially most important point of contact with new clients.

[Chris Bryan]

Last time I checked a decent Website designer will run you around $100/hour and then good luck updating any of the text or God forbid uploading videos on your own afterwords. No you'll have to pay the website designer another $100/ hour to do that for you. No thanks!

[Dror Levi]

Well I found something that I like and cost me $39.00
Premium WordPress Themes | Elegant Themes

[Chip Thome]

That's the group my brother picked and by now I am sure you can use any or all of the themes on any websites you own. I have to admit the guys are real nice in the support area and sure seem to know their stuff. As you start out and have questions, start with the search first.