There are lots of considerations when starting to build your own web site...what you want it to look like and what kind of content you are going to provide? Do you want it to be a "portal" site or a "community" site, or one that relies mostly on its own content, such as a site for family, friends, or a business?

We aren't going to go into content and styling issues here...those are things that you will have to decide (hopefully before you start on your site!). We are just going to give you the basics on how to get started, and where to go to get your Open Source software to build your own site.

The first thing to consider is are you going to build your site using pages (the "old" method) or using a Content Management System (CMS). We highly recommend using a CMS such as Joomla , the CMS we used to build this site and many others.

The big advantage to a CMS is that you can have a dynamic site, with changing images, content, and menus, and you don't have to build page after page of the same code. Likewise, if you need to make a change, you can do it in the "back-end" of your site or in the style sheet, and the change will affect all the pages (or just the ones you choose) on your entire site.

The downside to a CMS is that, depending on your capcity for such things, it has a bit of a learning curve. The other issue is that you do need a web hosting platform that gives you a MySQL database and PHP ...sounds intimidating, but in fact with most shared hosting services these things are standard. You don't really have to know anything about these programs, but Joomla needs them to operate...most of the work will be done behind the scenes, so don't think you have to be a programmer to use it!

There are also many, many extensions and modules you can add to your CMS...image galleries, guestbooks, calendars, newsfeeds, advertising...just about anything you can think of. There are at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of free templates (the "look" of your site). In fact, this site is built around a template that was originally built by raduga and Pat Heard called Greenery).

If you are building a site that is only going to have a few pages and little content, or are building one on a free hosting platform (such as from your ISP that is included with your account) then you will probably want to use the "page" method for building a site. The program we have used is NVU (Open Source, of course) but there are lots of them out there if you search. Be sure to check out SourceForge.net which is the repository for much of the Open Source software available.