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How to host open source templates instantly and for free

Apr 25th, 2011

StatiCloud makes it easy for you to host custom versions of open source templates, instantly and for free. Here's a quick screencast to demonstrate how.

To try this out, you'll need an internet connection and a picture of a monkey. If you have your own domain name, we can make use of that as well.

Required Monkey Picture

Google for open source templates, follow a link and pick a template that you like. Download the zip file for the template and drag it into StatiCloud where it will be instantly hosted.

Now let's customize. Uncompress the template locally, and double click on it's index.html to see a local version of the site. Drag your monkey image into the template's folder, open up your favorite text editor and rename the templates main image 'src' to your monkey image.

Compress the folder for your website, enter your email address to get a login link for StatiCloud, click 'update' in the StatiCloud admin and drag in the updated zip file.

Finally, if you want to use a custom domain name for your website, click 'Use Your Domain Name', follow the instructions for setting the CNAME (o_O .. yeah we know this part's tough) for your domain name, and then enter your domain name and hit enter, and your done.

There's lots of great resources for web design, and open source templates you can use as a starting point for your web site. Life Hacker is reguarly featuring these resources. Like this post for instance, which highlights an open source template you can use to quickly create your own custom about.me like personal page.

to learn more!