Are there alternate ways to do the things batcave is doing (creating web domain, designing a beautiful and interactive website, setting up log-in authentication, creating ads for revenue, making payment options for things, etc.)? I know he uses ASP.NET and I guess SQL for his server database. However, I started learning code from codecademy and I’m pretty solid on html/css, but they have options to learn javascript, jquery, ruby, python, etc., which are all applicable to web development. If I’m not mistaken I think Ruby allows one to create applications for things such as log-in authentications and javascript & jquery for the interactive and more advanced touches to a website. Let’s say I learn all of that, would I still use ASP.NET, or can I use these other languages in a coding program to develop a website instead of it?

Also, if I can use that stuff instead of going through ASP.NET, what do I use for my database? Can I still use SQL or do I have to use ASP.NET to use SQL?

What I would maybe like to do is create a blog-type website, so I would have an e-mail mailing list for articles, for example. I would need the database to hold the email addresses for a mailing list that I would build and I guess also to hold the usernames/passwords when creating a log-in system.

The way to set up advertisements I’m not at all sure how to do at all yet, but I’m not worried about that yet. I want to get this other stuff in line first. Would appreciate the help, batcave. Thanks

Wordpress….

I’ve heard of it, but I’ve also heard that it is best to move past it into one’s own website once one gets the chance. The blog was more of an example, I’m not positive it’s what I would want to do just yet. I appreciate the tip, though!

I forgot another question. If I wanted to get a job in web development, what is the required level of skills I would need? Would it better serve me to major in it in school or can I learn it on my own? If I can, what should I teach myself?

You should be asking keymaster. Certification probably wouldn’t hurt.

Good point, I included him, too.

It’s really just my way of teasing out of you if your priority is the blog or the learning experience. I could have just asked….. but nooooo……

Hah, I like that. It’s definitely the learning experience. I would consider myself an entrepreneurial person, so having the web development skills allows me to take on any venture I have in mind much easier when I can generate traffic to a website I can make on my own that looks very professional. Ideally, I would want to get a job in it to make money, while on the side I continue to work on my own projects until I make enough money from them to quit my job.

I want to know those things too.

I am starting to learn HTML/CSS, and I am looking forward to go to JavaScript and Jquery. If there is anything else I should focus on, it would be great to know! (I thought about Ruby as well, so yeah! I want to know too. Is it worth it?)

Also, could you state your opinion on the other languages I was talking about? (ruby, jquery, javascript, etc.)

I worked in IT for about twelve years, for large companies and for small ones. I really loved it for a lot of years, did almost the same batcave plan of getting off on the technology, and learning for learning’s sake, learning the whole set of technologies behind the web, etc, as you are starting to do. And it’s great. I loved it. But i got burned out somewhere along the way on the “dealing with managers” side of things. For many years I hopped around in perm and contract jobs, hoping that eventually I would find a place where mangers weren’t asses. it never happened. Now I haven’t really done much coding in 7 years, but think of it occasionally. Right now I only have an android tablet, so can’t really do too much. Batcave’s rants have almost made me want to do it some more, but not for a job, only to invent an amazing product. Which leads me to my main comment. I would focus less on doing IT as a job, and only do for projects that are 100% owned by you. That’s what I would do, if I could do it over. Don’t infect the joy of creation with the horror of american corporate culture.

Yes, ideally I would like to do that as well. The problem is it takes a lot of time to get a business up and running and making money at a steady pace. I want to have the job only to keep money in my pocket while I work on ideas for a business.

Im thinking of getting into the google cloud developer specs. If you’re gonna dance with the devil, you might as well cut out the middle man.

I just googled it, pretty interesting stuff. It looks like its the google equivalent to the Microsoft tech that batcave is talking about.

If it’s OK, I’m gonna dumb my answer down a bit…. because I don’t know what you know. On that basis alone, it’s difficult to answer without sounding condescending. But I don’t mean it. I’ll get down to basics first and then work my way up if it’s clear.

You can get up and running much faster using WordPress. 80% of the 40 million sites on the net are WordPress. There are 1001 reasons for this. Prior to Version 3, wordpress was a good blogging platform for publishing basic articles and something with an image. Like creating a basic “blog”. But since v3 (2013) major advancements were made. The reason why it’s successful as a framework is because it’s OPEN SOURCE and FREE. Meaning you can train yourself, and answers are available EVERYWHERE. Got a question about wordpress like “how do I get the number of users who have registered on my site?”…. google “WP get count users” and BOOM! you have an answer:

<?php 

$result = count_users();

echo $result;

?>

Done. All the functions are documented and there is a document for everyone of them. Version 4 is now a complete multimedia CMS (content management system) and you can run some pretty advanced s~~~ using that. Thousands of plugins and helper scripts have been created that you can find and someone has already done boatloads of work for you. Need a plugin to see how many people are reading your site right now? It’s already been done. Install it for free and go.

••••••

So lets rewind a bit. Back to basics. If you know how to make a basic html page with HTML and css, you are good to start. HTML for markup (sections and layout) and CSS for styling and colors. Start there. Once you have made a static page, you can enhance it with little JQUERY (extension of javascript) which is a client side language. That means if I tell the website to do something (like submit a form) I tell YOUR browser to execute it. When you click a button, JQUERY is a script that runs in YOUR browser and can pop up an alert, hide something, detect the browser type, display something BASED on browser type, show something, submit a form, redirect you, display the current time on YOUR machine, detect your screen resolution etc..

So you have now made a static page with HTML, JS / JQUERY and CSS. Great start!
All of those are visible inside the code of the page on your end.

This kind of page is called “static”.
Static pages don’t really DO anything. They just display s~~~.

But now you will want to make pages INTELLIGENT.
Intelligent pages are called “dynamic”. They change based on certain variables.

Perhaps you want to display something for logged in users only. A bit of PHP code checks to see if the user is logged in and then prints out a new block of something for those people only. When someone submits a form, you may also want to collect that that data and send it somewhere, compose a mail, send it, count the visitor, create a new user, get number of current users, get the email of a user, create thumbnails from images, chop images, resize images, … i.e do some stuff on the server that is smart.

PHP is a server side language.
It is also open source , free, limitless and an industry-standard.

Wordpress is entirely built on PHP. It is the language of choice for millions of websites – including the big high traffic s~~~. You may have heard of intelligent ASP pages??? Different language, same s~~~. Banks use it (or used to). It sucks. PHP is better.

PHP runs on the server , and you don’t see it in the browser.
It does the smart connecting to the database and backend processing. Nobody sees that s~~~.

You know how the homepage of MGTOW.com displays a different video sometimes? Well PHP does that. That’s a basic example. We tell it to choose a random video, and if you’re on a mobile device, don’t play a video at all.

MYSQL (commonly pronounced “MY SEQUEL”) is like flat text files that just stores lines of s~~~ in one package – your database. MYSQL is also downloadable and installs for free on any platform from MYSQL.com. So let’s review:

• HTML for layout and markup
• JS for client side stuff
• CSS for styling and appearance
• PHP as your server side language
• MYSQL for your database
• Apache 2+ (the actual server software you barely need to think about except when it comes time to configure a server)

Get good at those, and you are in business. A one-man show.

••••

Now, if you have a MAC, all of this s~~~ is already built in , turn it on, and you can develop a full website like this one on your laptop. It has everything I mentioned. Download WordPress for free and you can train yourself on ALL of this – just like I did. No college. No university. ( And I wouldn’t even recommend them anyway). The best education is staying up until 5AM to solve a tiny problem. Those are the people who get hired over university grads. A degree may help you, but showing boatloads of actual online work will help you MORE.

If you’re not on a MAC, you will have to learn how to install and setup PHP and MYSQL as separates. This is available online too, but I don’t have the patience for that s~~~. I want to concentrate on creation – and actually using the technologies.

••••

You can use WordPress to get a site online at WordPress.com, without having to deal with your own server. They provide that s~~~. You can even get a starter “theme” to get you up and running fast. A “theme” is a ready made mini-site that has pre-made pages for a site. WordPress gives away starter themes – a new one every year. You can download thousands of free themes. (I even create and sell them!) Great way to get content online TODAY. Once your site exists, you can pop open the hood of the theme, look under it and see all the PHP, HTML and JQUERY inside a theme that someone else has already done. That’s when you get dirty and start customizing. The rest of the s~~~ will just evolve.

You have to decide on what you want to accomplish. Then make it.

When I got started, I thought it would be THE COOLEST thing to create a form , and mail the results to myself and then send a thank you email to the user. This was my “goal”. That’s how I trained myself in PHP. Then I wanted to l;earn how to create image galleries and uniform image thumbnails – no matter what size the image. Then full blown Flash / Interactive / Multimedia sites , and it all just evolved from there.

Once your site is online and you start getting visitors… then you can sign up for Google Adsense to place ads and hope you get $1 a click. But that’s later and last. You will notice we haven’t done it yet either. Too f~~~ing busy.

You visualize it, then you make it. All of the technologies exist and you can train yourself.
If you don’t have an idea or a plan / goal, you will possibly get sidetracked and might be lost, or confused.

If you want, I can train you. But that would have to be down the road. My non-MGTOW business actually does that and I offer consulting. Special discount for my MGTOW bros – but later….. because now we are swamped. I hope this was a good introduction and what you were looking for as a way to get your head around what can get you online soon.

You could just start poking around with WordPress and try stuff!
You may surprise yourself.

You said with a mac all of this is built in? So you’re saying I just download wordpress on my mac and all of the languages are accessible to build a website with? The basic in-browser stuff I understand like with the html/css. It’s with the server/database stuff I am extremely new to. So with wordpress I don’t need to run my own server, I run off of theirs, correct? I download MYSQL separately from wordpress and that serves as my database for things like storing usernames/passwords, emails, etc.? Sorry, I’m not sure if these questions really make sense, the database/server stuff is foreign to me still.

Then once I have all of the languages understood at a basic level, I have wordpress and MYSQL, I can make a website that does whatever I want: stores information, can have log-in/membership features, and all kinds of other cool stuff. Do I have this right?

And thanks again @keymaster , @batcave , @survivor – you guys are making me really excited to learn all of this and get going with it! Sorry if what I’m saying seems kind of scattered, it’s a lot to take in. But yeah, HTML, CSS, JS/JQUERY, PHP, MYSQL, and eventually APACHE 2+. I will focus on all of these.

Edit: I noticed it wants me to use a company for web hosting. Is there a way for me to do that without spending money or is that a necessity?