IMHO xhtml, css and basic javascript are the minimim for designing all but the most basic static sites. I think if your site has dynamic content some formf server side scripting language is also very beneficial. A compromise is using a CMS that handles most of your scripting needs and has plenty of add-ons for most functions. Thanks to CSS you can still make it look anyway you want.

I've been plotting and scheming this for quite a few years and really it's kind of intended to be more like a book than a website so no need for dynamic stuff (in fact most of this actually WAS going to be a book and may still be one day but I don't feel like self publishing due to expense or getting boned by an established publisher as always happens for new, unknown writers). Just text, links and a few images. I'm hoping the absolute bare bones, no fluff approach will actually be part of the appeal of the site. It's also gonna end up being huge too so I have to consider bandwidth and server space (gotta keep overhead low). If I want to get fancier later I'd just create new sections and only apply the weirdness there or figure out a way to rebuild it based on the original content.

Oh but yeah... there will eventually need to be something to gather up user input but that's a long way off and I just learned how to create all the various html user input forms. That's good enough for me. I'll just need to learn, as you said, the server side stuff which apparently is provided by many hosts already but even still I'll be going with Linux based so I'll use whatever free program handles that (I forget which one it is... MySQL?).
 

MySQL is awesome and works very well with PHP. Easy toblearn as well. I think sharke's suggestion to just use a div tag to create an ad class will work for your needs.

So now I'm trying to remember (I watched a whole series of tuts on web server/management stuff a while back).
 
Apache is the actual server software, MySQL is the database software and PHP is the FTP software? Right?
 
I know there are many others but those are the ones that come with Ubuntu Server and are free/don't have usage fees... right?
 
I'll be rewatching everything again and taking notes next time (as I build everything). First go arounds for stuff have been more about making sure I could actually understand it all (or if I was too stupid to get it) and whether I could actually DO it all with what limited resources I have.
 
Thank goodness for epicly clever fellows on youtube and elsewhere on the internet willing to share their knowledge. I shudder to think how many classroom hours I would have had to endure and tuition fees I would have had to pay to get to this point.

hmm... the PHP assumption feels wrong. Well why the heck don't I just google it. lol
 
 
 

PHP is actually the scripting language. It is the code that woild provide communication to server and database. Say for instance you wanted to ask user input and then write material to thebpagen based on that input. PHP isnone of the scripting langauges you could use.

Ah, yes. I remember now. Thanks.

Peachpitbpress makes a good, affordable book on using php and mysql together

dubdisciple
Peachpitbpress makes a good, affordable book on using php and mysql together

Thanks. Got NP++ up now and testing some things out. CSS is gonna take a heck of a lot more memory work and fiddling than HTML but at least it seems to be working.
 
One thing that is going to be sooooper helpful for me is the "pre" tag which is HTML but nicely manipulated by CSS.
 
I'm also going to try to stick to HTML5 protocol I think. I'd like to maybe use some of its A/V features even it might bork out on older browsers but I'll always provide an alternative of some kind. That's gonna take some scheming.