[peteyflow]

I'm pretty new at this. I've reviewed pretty much a lot of the sites that are listed here for review, and well, I was just wondering what software you guys use to build websites? Dreamweaver? Or is there a specific website that you go to that is already premade and you just build from there? Or others?

And how do you add applications where people can rate and post things? Forums? What is CMS? Thanks

[ASJ]

The majority of web professionals use DreamWeaver. Currently it is the industry standard. There are exceptions to this rule. Higher end programming often times required other applications. For basic websites, DreamWeaver is the most common application.

There are also template website where you can purchase pre-designed templates for basic websites, flash based websites, blogs, e-commerce stores, forums, etc.

CMS stands for Content Management System. This can refer to blog applications like WordPress, ExpressionEngine, etc. or more of an actual CMS like Drupal or Joomla. They allow you to make simple edits to your website from a backend section.

Personally I design (with Photoshop) and build everything (with DreamWeaver) from scratch for my personal projects as well as my clients websites. I have incorporated blogs, e-commerce stores, CMS and other tools into websites. The key is to make everything as seamless as possible.

[chickenjoe]

I'm not a web designer or anything, but I've had the problem before. It takes some time to learn how to create websites and also learn about Dreamweaver. Plus, dreamweaver is very expensive. Whats a poor boy to do? Well, if you want a free version of something similar to dreamweaver I would try NVU. It's not as good, but it will get the job done.

All you have to do is get a template from any free web template site and if you can't afford Photoshop get GIMP it's free and is almost the same. Works just as well. Make some changes to the template in GIMP. Load it in NVU and (whoop there it is) you got yourself a website!

But hey if you want it a little bit easier. You can purchase a web builder software. I'm currently using WYSIWYGWEBBUILDER.com, works like a charm. Simple drag and drop function and easy to integrate a template in there.

Here is my sample work using a free template.
Online Scams Exposed - Exposing The Truth!

Really simple, just built it for adsense. Whatever. Do as you please with the information.

Oh yeah, if you want to ad ratings and stuff. Search for "Rating Scripts" or "PHP scripts". If you have no clue what that is. You should go to "school" and learn all about it at W3Schools Online Web Tutorials. Don't worry it's FREE schooling.

Forums. Easy stuff man. I would recommend getting a hosting provider that provides it already, like hostgator. It will have a simple addon installation for forums. Easy 123 installation.

Peace.

[akula]

here: a million diffrent cms systems
del.icio.us search for "cms"
pick one, click a few buttons and you have a site