Web Design Beginner Needs Help Please

I AM HOPING TO CREATE MY GALLERYS WEB SITE FROM SCRATCH WITH NO PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE IN WEB DESIGN AND CURRENTLY NO MAC.

I KEEP COMING VERY CLOSE TO PICKING UP A SECOND HAND MAC BUT IN REALITY DONT KNOW WHAT KIND OF SPECS I NEED TO RUN (PRESUMABLY) DREAMWEAVER (OR MAYBE THERE IS OTHER, BETTER SOFTWARE)

I INTEND TO BUY A NEW IMAC/MINI MAC WHEN THE NEW UPDATES ARE RELEASED, IN THE MEANTIME I WANT TO SPEND A FEW HUNDRED QUID ON SOMETHING TO GET ME STARTED, WOULD THIS DO THE JOB?

ALL ADVICE WOULD BE GREATLY RECIEVED

THANKS

SIMON

 

You don't need a MAC to be a web designer, there is plenty of software on Windows and/or Linux based PC's that can do the job as well.

 

I'll echo Ardesco's comments - you don't need a mac for being a web designer. Actually you don't need it to be a graphic designer these days

I use both Mac and PC - the Mac is a 17" MacBook Pro and the PC is my stationed computer.

I have an external Harddrive that i've partitioned into 4 sections (Work/Fonts/Documents/Accounts). I flip between both pretty seamlessly actually. All the software is the same. All my fonts are truetype...
I actually find using the PC better designing for web.

For webdesign advice, i'd suggest learning HTML and CSS from scratch. Often people jump straight into programs like Dreamweaver all too easily, and get whood over by all the functions and panels.

I find you'll get a better appreciation of web design once you have hands on experience of the markup language and you'll be able to move on at your own pace.

Plus you won't have to wait for later Dreamweaver releases to keep up with the moving technology

Good'ol notepad

 

Coppermine Photo Gallery

It's free.

Solves your problem in a half-a-minute.

 

Have a look at mine

Hi Ive done a couple.

If you want some help let me know.

 

You don't need a Mac. In fact, I'd recommend you stick with PC. Most web design and development companies started out from an IT background and added more design resources as they grew. They actually tend to use PC. I've been working in web design for 10 years and I've never worked in a Mac based office. It would have been nice.

It's the print agencies that moved into web that tend to be Mac based.

Lots of exceptions though.

 

I agree completely with Johnny. You really don't need a ton of fancy tools to design a website; your bog-standard PC with Notepad or WordPad, along with a grasp of HTML and CSS, will do everything you need it to.
Take a look at W3Schools; there are excellent step-by-step tutorials on HTML and CSS, as well as other handy languages. I guarantee you'll feel a lot better when you can not only design an attractive site, but also understand how you designed it, which you don't get from blindly barging in with a WYSIWYG web design program.

Tox's example is proof that you can make a good-looking page without needing a fancy program or complicated coding. That there is a nice, clean bit of HTML, with some CSS to arrange it - when I look at the source coding, I can understand straight away what commands do what. Personally, it boggles my head when I look at the coding in a website and it looks like gibberish.