Not sure I understand. Do you have an HTML web site that you want to make into a Joomla web site? If so I don't believe that is possible. Joomla is a Content Management System which differs greatly from the old HTML built web sites. Anyway, can you be more specific as to what you want to do and I'll try to help.

Chris

so i downloaded joomla and unzipped it. do i upload the unzipped file to my web server?

You need an FTP client and FTP access to upload the files to your server. There are a ton of paid and free clients, personally I use FileZilla ( http://filezilla-project.org/ ).

Once you have that, login to your server using the FTP client, upload the files to whichever directory you want to run Joomla on, then navigate your browser to the correct web address where you installed the Joomla files, the Joomla installer should walk you through the rest.

If you need more detail let me know.

Anonymous, certainly you can configure Joomla! to look and feel like your static site, but this is not an "upgrade." There are a ton of tutorials on how to get Joomla! installed and working. I'd put Google to work. Once you get it installed and configured, you can populate it with the content which exists on your current site. Does that help? Blessings! -NP

I'm using Dreamweaver CS4 to do FTP. that should work right? Thank you so muuuch everybody!
I'm a peon in web designing..

email me any joomla knowledge i need to know.
ssuratosjr@yahoo.com
http://estevdesign.livingf8.com

estev,
I don't use dreamweaver CS4 so can't comment on it specifically but any FTP will work. GoDaddy even offers an FTP client but in my experience it was slow to load and I had some problems upload large files. The easiest way to get a Joomla site off the ground in my opinion for someone with little computer skills like me is to use a service like GoDaddy that will handle setting up everything. Purchase the domain, purchase the server, and click to install the Content Management System (Joomla or Drupal or another). They also will install other apps like forums, blogs, ect. with just a click. No setting up Databases or anything.

Googling "Joomla server" will also yield other companies that will do the same thing.

Here is another. http://www.jsasonline.com/

Good luck to you.

Chris

Thank you so much for that information. My church is actually under godaddy. i'm about to try it now. Thanks again!! please dont stop sharing your knowledge!

Estev,
bumped this to a new thread.

If you're just starting out I would also suggest you setup a version of your site on your computer to test things out. Use something like MAMP on the Mac for the webserver, similar programs are available for Windows. Once you know what you want to do then you can upload your files.

I love MAMP!

It's great. Especially since our net connection is soooo slow. But I can work on my pages just fine on MAMP.

Now, if I just knew what I was doing! Then things would probably go smoother!