What Should I Use to Build My Website?

Content Management: 

These days, anyone can build a website.  How successful it will be in another matter entirely.  Free tools are available online to help you rough out your first website.  It wasn't that long ago that one had to spend $200.00 purchasing Microsoft Frontpage or the more expensive Dreamweaver to build a website.  Today we have many choices.  Many hosting companies even have an editor you can use.

DotNetNuke:   Also known as DNN, is actually a great way to get started.  The editor is free and accessed by logging into your website with a user name and password.  This type of online web building technology is known as content management.  DNN is a Microsoft project built in .net (a platform). 

Unlike a "static" website, built in Frontpage or Dreamweaver that cannot be altered by the visitor,  DNN is an "active" technology.  It is instead, database driven.  Webpage are actually consist as a series of setting in a database.  Pages are created "on the fly" as you request them.  Depending on the visitor's actions, the website can change. Visitors can create accounts, subscribe, and the site acknowledges them by name.  This type of platform is ideal for ecommerce as well.

This website is in fact written in DotNetNuke.  The Layout of the page you see (the blue graphics, the columns, etc) are part of what is called a "skin."  Skins can be changes in minutes, completely changing the look of the site, which is very convenient.  DNN comes free with several modules to help you design it. Modules (application programs designed to perform specific functions such as shopping carts, email form modules, etc. can also be purchased by third party vendors such as snowcovered.com

Possible Disadvantages

DNN is an application, not unlike like Word, or Photoshop.  When you first open the application ( in this case, visit the website) it takes a bit of time to fully open.  After about 20 minutes without activity, a DNN site basically goes to sleep if it has no visitors.  It reloads when the next visitor arrives, who has to wait.  DNN is ideal for busy site, but can present problems for slower, newer websites sites.  On the other hand, it loads very fast on sites with high traffic.  

Things you can do to speed up a DNN site:

• Use good coding practices.  DNN still allows the web developer alot of room for tweaking.  It  allows you to hand write html code in the text/html modules.  Basically, the better your code, the faster the site will load.  Optimally, you want all code xhtml complaint, which helps the page load fast when Parsed (processed) by the browser.  No xhtml complaint code must be converted in the browser before your page can view. 
• When buying a skin, try and find done made with pure CSS, if possible.   CSS skins require less page code to build.  They are cleaner in design and load faster.  They are easier to modify, as well.
• Try and buy xhtml compliant modules. They help the page load faster too.  A slow loading module can really clog up the works.
• Subscribe and use videos from dnncreative.com to help you to build your site properly.  This site has over 200 Flash-type videos to help you built your site big.  I highly suggest it; it's money well spent.