Incomplete Website

[carriemai]

I had a website designed by someone advertising in the classifieds section of Thaivisa who is now a month over the time limit advertised on his site. He still hasn't completed the work or published said site, and he's stopped responding to requests to do so.

I see that the domain's been registered together with a business address email, and the site's almost complete, albeit lacking copy and the gallery.

My question is, what can I do to get the little that has been done under my control?

The fact that I have no experience with web designing and css is of course blindingly obvious. I resolve to learn and do it myself, next time.

Thank you all for your constructive help.

[wxpwzrd]

This is a hard lesson of web life as everyone fancies themself a web design professional.

The most important asset is the domain name. If it has been registered with the designer as the 'owner' (registrant), then likely not much you can do to recover it without significant time and effort. If it is registered to you, you can contact the registrar (who it is registered with, GoDaddy, Dotster, Network Solutions, etc) and find out what proof is required to have the domain placed in your account instead of the designer. Once you have the domain, you are in more control. You can then direct where the web and email hosting is, thereby controling your domain destiny.

Getting the site contents is another issue. Contractual obligations will determine whether you can have the content or not. There are ways to pull portions of the site as well, but I would not discuss them here.

[Guest Reimar]

First step is to find out who is the real owner of the domain in question like as wxpwzrd explained. To find out the info go to: http://www.whois.net and do a search for the Registrant infos of the domain name.

If it's you, you can contact the Registra for to start the take over of the domain. But that will need some time and even effort. You may have to send personal identification documents to the Registra.

The question is: It is worth the trouble? Or is it better to take a new Damon Name and register it by your self?!

Cheers.

[raro]

You may contact Phil Connors. He runs a reliable hosting and web design company and can possibly advise you step by step how to get control over your webpage.

[carriemai]

I'd already done a little digging on whois.com and net and found out some interesting information about this guy, but not nearly as interesting as that which I found on cvgadget which revealed he's been a major internet scammer since at least 2004, with fingers in many pies, all of which can be viewed on geocities' numerous links to him.

If anyone's interested in avoiding this con artist, including the moderators of this forum who might be persuaded to delete his advertising in the classifieds section of tv, do please pm me.

[AlarmGuy]

Definately register any future domain names yourself next time. If you decide to design the site yourself, you might want to look at a web template site to speed things along. We recommend http://www.perfectory.com to our customers as we have purchased a couple of templates from them ourselves without any issues. Our customers purchase the template and we optimize the site and place the content in the right places for them.

[carriemai]

Definately register any future domain names yourself next time. If you decide to design the site yourself, you might want to look at a web template site to speed things along. We recommend http://www.perfectory.com to our customers as we have purchased a couple of templates from them ourselves without any issues. Our customers purchase the template and we optimize the site and place the content in the right places for them.

Well yes, thankyou AlarmGuy, but having been burned once, won't be going there again, and particularly through any contacts on Thaivisa.

Why didn't he advertise on Bahtsold doyathink?

[wxpwzrd]

Definately register any future domain names yourself next time. If you decide to design the site yourself, you might want to look at a web template site to speed things along. We recommend http://www.perfectory.com to our customers as we have purchased a couple of templates from them ourselves without any issues. Our customers purchase the template and we optimize the site and place the content in the right places for them.

Perfectory is a reseller for www.templatemonster.com - just go to the source.

[wxpwzrd]

Well yes, thankyou AlarmGuy, but having been burned once, won't be going there again, and particularly through any contacts on Thaivisa.

Absolutely the best advice you gave yourself!

[Crushdepth]

Just avoid resellers like the plague. There's absolutely no reason to use them - they are not cheaper, and often lack a mechanism to transfer the domain elsewhere if you need/want to. Local resellers also have an obnoxious habit of registering the domain in their own name to encourage (force) you to use their registration and/or hosting services.

Dealing with a primary registrar is much easier. Case in point - I once bought a domain off Yahoo, which I later learned (the hard way) is actually a reseller (really!). The underlying registrar is Melbourne IT. You'd think that Yahoo would have a mechanism for transferring domains to Melbourne IT, but they don't. Took about 3 days of phone calls to both Yahoo and Melbourne IT and much bouncing back and forth to get the domain manually transferred to MIT.

Melbourne IT have good service too (but they aren't the cheapest show in town by a long shot).

[wxpwzrd]

Actually, someone with high moral standards will actually give you a disc backup of the site. This backup would (should) include the source files for compiled objects such as Flash objects. It is my first requirement to the people I sub for. The client gets the source on completion.

[jackdanielsesq]

First you should play with a few names, run them by your friends, business colleagues, etc, see if they strike the right cord. You need several as most of the top echelon are history. Go top drawer with a dot com - they get the most respect and dont have real acceptance problems in business. I have included the folks I have used for say 10 years - they have impeccable records.

Once you have settled on a name, register it, then you need to decide where to host it.

Again, I would go top drawer and host it say in USA CA or UK - anywhere from $1.00 per month. Take it for a year and move on.

A Linux site is good - you dont have to pay for all of the M$ junk.

I would use Linux period. Might as well get your head around it now, especially as you have little/no priors.

I had nitemares with most MS products - thats even before we get into security.

Enjoy the ride.

RB>Jack

http://www.networksolutions.com/

[carriemai]

The other way is to threaten the bastard with a report to Immigration and set the police on the account holder into which you unwittingly paid the deposit, and lo and behold you get the domain host notify you you've been named as the owner of the site, together with what little godawful work was done on it and pleadings not to 'ruin' the skunk's life. Like I care.

The moral of the story is, yes, register the domain yourself, particularly here in the land of shameless and gettawayable scames. Check every company on whois.net and then take their name/s over to cvgadget and check the docs there. This of course is still not foolproof but a good start.

I still intend to redo the website myself. I have a Masters in Fine Art, not particularly computer related I know, but at least I have an eye for design and will just have to apply myself to getting a site up which I would not be embarrassed about marketing on the net. I won't ever be dealing with anyone here again.

Thanks everso.

Edited June 10, 2009 by monty

[Crushdepth]

Actually, someone with high moral standards will actually give you a disc backup of the site. This backup would (should) include the source files for compiled objects such as Flash objects. It is my first requirement to the people I sub for. The client gets the source on completion.

Agree - unless you have a complete copy of the site in your hand its not your site.

[klikster]

I still intend to redo the website myself. I have a Masters in Fine Art, not particularly computer related I know, but at least I have an eye for design and will just have to apply myself to getting a site up which I would not be embarrassed about marketing on the net. I won't ever be dealing with anyone here again.

Thanks everso.

Carriemai, you have gotten some very good information here, so why turn around and tar every TV member with the the same brush. I know for a fact that several members here on TV are talentless regarding web design, while other are extremely skilled.

My guess is that you went with price over substance and paid for your decision. You will find the same range in the web design skill set no matter where you shop for coders.

Taking the approach of retaliating ala,

"The other way is to threaten the bastard with a report to Immigration and set the police on the account holder into which you unwittingly paid the deposit, and lo and behold you get the domain host notify you you've been named as the owner of the site, together with what little godawful work was done on it and pleadings not to 'ruin' the skunk's life. Like I care."

makes you sound petty and childish.

And the suggestion that you will do the site yourself adds to my perception of your naivety. Web pages are about much more than art, especially when it comes to marketing on the net.

People with attitudes like yours piss me off!

[carriemai]

I still intend to redo the website myself. I have a Masters in Fine Art, not particularly computer related I know, but at least I have an eye for design and will just have to apply myself to getting a site up which I would not be embarrassed about marketing on the net. I won't ever be dealing with anyone here again.

Thanks everso.

Carriemai, you have gotten some very good information here, so why turn around and tar every TV member with the the same brush. I know for a fact that several members here on TV are talentless regarding web design, while other are extremely skilled.

My guess is that you went with price over substance and paid for your decision. You will find the same range in the web design skill set no matter where you shop for coders.

Taking the approach of retaliating ala,

"The other way is to threaten the bastard with a report to Immigration and set the police on the account holder into which you unwittingly paid the deposit, and lo and behold you get the domain host notify you you've been named as the owner of the site, together with what little godawful work was done on it and pleadings not to 'ruin' the skunk's life. Like I care."

makes you sound petty and childish.

And the suggestion that you will do the site yourself adds to my perception of your naivety. Web pages are about much more than art, especially when it comes to marketing on the net.

People with attitudes like yours piss me off!

'Ere, you're not 'im are yoo? The web designer that isn't? I know he trolls this particular subforum, so think it might be.

As those of you who have troubled to reply constructively, my thanks. Although I have to say, for perhaps the largest expat internet forum in Thailand, there were a dearth of 'recommendations' for alternatives. Why's that do you think?

A special thankyou to wxpwrd. Seriously. You the best. Will pm for honest, intelligent, informative advice, lacking on so many of these subforums. Thanks.

[rayong09]

Web pages are about much more than art, especially when it comes to marketing on the net.

The golden nugget of information on this thread. Read it until it is embedded into your brain unless you want to give all your profits to Adwords. You can have a $1 website or a $5000 website, if they cant find you the whole thing was a complete waste of time. As for trying to do it yourself, forget it.

Edited June 9, 2009 by rayong09

[elcent]

1. always register your domain yourself or make sure that the person you put in charge of it is using your data. Domains can be easily transferred. In fact, there is no need for any webmaster to have access to your domain account as long as it points to the right name servers which is a matter of minutes only.

2. make sure the hosting account is under your control by only granting access to specific folders in your control panel. It's recommended to work this through together and is a matter of an hour to set all mail configurations and other jobs. Most control panels have great tools to control ftp users with exact time report.

3. there is no such a thing then special written codes for a website up to 30000 Baht and more. Scripts available in open source and other places which are proven to work good. A new script coded/written would have to pass many steps before it can be considered RC(release canditate) and takes from months to years to accomplish. So consider patch working with various available working scripts.

When I make sites I mainly use available free scripts and on some occasions I buy scripts. If I'd write them all by myself it would take too much time and the costs would be much higher.

In fact it's all out there. I spend considerable time to test newly available scripts and can assure you that most are working and are much better than a single person could achieve. So it's a matter of updating oneself with the latest and best available stuff.

Unless you're looking for special scripts in the range of 20 000 000 USD to 100 000 000 USD you can find any and all within the open source community and for any and all commercial/non commercial purposes.