How do get started?

[Bellaibella]

1) Hello, I am a new VodaHost customer (Client ID #14380) and I just downloaded ver 9.0.3. I am intimidated with the blank page and I can't seem to get started. I was hoping that there is a template out there that can help me jump start my new website project. Will it help me if I buy one of those 600 VodaHost templates to get me going? If I purchase a template that has a shopping cart with it (either OSCommerce or Zen Cart), would this make it easier to load my product descriptions and images in my site, hence cutting my prep time?
2) BTW, I know this is probably a stupid request, but can someone tell me in plain English what is "skin"?

Thank you all.

[navaldesign]

Re: Terrified and Confused

Your starting point should be here.

First read "How to plan your website", then, if you are going to use BV, start watching the tutorials.

As for the OSCommerce you can install it for free theough your Control Panel, Fantastico (the smiley at the bottom of CP)

By time you will get experienced and solve all the problems. Don't worry, you are going to have plenty of help here!

[limebrook1]

Re: Terrified and Confused

Don't worry - we were all in the same boat once. It is exciting but intimidating as well, but you will soon have a great looking site. My tip is start simple. As Navaldesign says, look at the tutorials. There are loads of free basic templates which BV - I would avoid buying a more complicated template until you know what you want to do. A friend of mine bought one because he thought it looked good, then when he worked out his site found it didn't suit it all all! Get ideas for your content, how you want to lay it out, what pages you are going to have before worrying too much about the design. That can, and probably always will be, tinkered with.

As far as I understand it a skin is simply the overall look and feel - like this forum is in different shades of blue. If it was green it could be said to have a green skin.

Any questions just ask - don't worry about asking what you may think are simple for others, we have all been there and had to ask to get our sites started!

[Bellaibella]

Re: Terrified and Confused

Thank you, Navaldesign and Trish for the kind words.
I have read several tutorials and some of relevant (to my situation, that is) postings in the forum. More often than not, I get lost. I have two live sites hosted by another company and Blue Voda is quite different from the other host I have. I thought this is an easy task and it is not turning out to be so far. Please do not think that this a complaint, I do intend to transfer both to Blue Voda as soon as I learn (i.e. be confident in using) how to use Blue Voda webdesign, I just overestimated what I can do and the time required to learn something new.
Be plugging along, any help from anyone is much appreciated ...