Question where to start with the design of a website

[chicaloca]

hi everyone

I'll try and keep this fairly short although I do have some questions I'd really like some help with.

I finished a postgrad in web design in multimedia last year. Since then I've not been able to find work in this area however I've created a small demo site using html/css and a little flash (in the banner only) to show a bit of what I can do. its uploaded onto some free space on someone elses site.

I'd like to start creating a far bigger site for myself however I need some help even before I start.

domain names & hosting - can anyone recommend some places to look for a domain name, do I really need one at the moment and would I also need to pay for hosting?

I'd be planning to include

- javascript
-a little flash
-a little silverlight

in my site.

We also created a small site for uni that used VB.Net to have a back-end database. We used visual studio for this.

If i wanted to have a back-end database in the site I am planning to create, how would I include it in the site? does visual studio still need to be used?

Sorry about all the questions, I'm still fairly new to web design, I know little bits of different things, not a lot about one thing in particular so not sure how to start getting my thoughts and facts together for a bigger and more complicated site.

any help anyone can give me would be appreciated

thanks for reading

 

[urstop]

You can use GoDaddy for domain registration and hosting. Its pretty cheap.

For database, you can use MS Access if its a simple application with just couple of tables.

Or you can try MYSQL as well, its a free open source database that you download and install.

For any type of coding you can use the Visual Studio editor.

For managing the database like MYSQL you can use the command prompt .