Hello all

I'm a graphic designer first and foremost but have been designing websites using DreamWeaver for about a year and a half. I know a little html - but not enough to code an entire site.

I've been designing for friends, and word is beginning to spread, and I'm being asked to do more - which is wonderful!

However, my problem is that I would like to be able to offer clients the means to update their own content, and I've heard that CMS is the way to do it. I don't host these websites myself (my computer is just a laptop!), and I have read that you need to install the CMS onto the server which hosts the website, so is this still possible?

The sites I create are generally for musicians/artists, so it's not like I need the whole site to be updateable, just certain things like Gigs, News, maybe a journal/blog. It would just be nice to not have to update them myself, and I'd be able to take on more business.

Any advice appreciated: feel free to tell me to stop being so lazy and learn to code!

I'm sure someone will reply with a more precise answer than mine. However, for what it's worth, there are tons of free CMS style scripts on the web. Some you have to pay for, others are free. I will list a few I am familiar with. Just as an option.

Joomla
Nuke Evolution
Cute News
Word Press

These can all be customized to your liking and updated by the client. Just be sure to read the license for each one to assure your following there expectations.

Joomla allows you to take full credit (at the bottom of the page) as long as you leave the copyright notices in the header script.

Cute News is a small CMS script that you can purchase a license per site.
This one is particularly nice because you just incorporate it into your own design with a php include tag, instead of incorporating your design into the CMS.

Of course, you could always pay a company to create on for you but I would be sure to do your research as there are always script kiddies that love to crash data base driven sites.

I use Cute News on my site and I love it.

Good Luck!

Liz - if you only know a little HTML, I'm going out on a limb and assuming you have no knowledge of php either ... almost all CMS systems are driven primarily by php, of which you'd have to code your clients' sites for them.

Drupal CMS. You can run multiple sites with single code base. A excellent choice for kind of sites you are looking for. No PHP knowledge required. Start here http://drupal.org/node/120612

A Newbie's experience ..
http://drupal.org/node/117400