Website Authoring Tools
We've been exploring different website authoring tools to see which ones we prefer for creating websites. Here is the list of a few we've used so far ...
PB Wiki - we've had this one for years. The security and permissions sytem is good and there is ample storage. Navigation is easy. The default theme is kind of blah, but there are options to customize the look (haven't had time to do that yet). They recently changed to a third party app for uploading videos, so it isn't possible to embed a video anymore unless it is on youtube...a real disappointment. Adding content to the page is kind of a clunky process, and it is hard to arrange objects. Images can be resized easily, but it is hard to move and organize them without adding a table structure. Help is easy to get to and pretty...helpful.
Google Sites - It is hard to get away from Google...so may as well join them! Unfortunately, their website authoring is not easy to figure out. You can click to 'Edit Page', which seems to let you edit the layout rather than the content. I inserted a textbox easily, but now I can't get back in to edit the content of the box...I guess I'll get the hang of it eventually.
Weebly.com - seems pretty simple so far...nice drag and drop authoring, and clean and intuitive UI. Of course, as with all of them, if you want to do something fancy you have to pay for it.
Blogspot.com - changed to blogger.com awhile back...or was it the other way around...? Like a lot of the sites, they have single sign on with Google... a good idea, but sometimes Google gets really confused about who is signing in! (Must happen a lot...notice the link "Can't access your site?" right there in the login box...) And one of our blogs has gone missing...what's up with that!?
Creating a Merged Word Doc -
There's a story behind this skill...I was going to say it's a funny story, but it really isn't funny I guess, to anyone but me. Anyway, when Microsoft came out with one of their latest and greatest versions of Office, (I forget which one, it was a few years ago), they had made a major change to the way Merged Documents worked. For anyone who doesn't know what 'Merged Documents' is, (which is pretty much everyone, from what I can tell...and that's OK), the process combines Word and Excel and allows you to create Form Letters...you know, where a bunch of folks get the same letter, but each one is personalized with their name to make it look like there is only one letter and someone wrote it just to them.
PB Wiki - we've had this one for years. The security and permissions sytem is good and there is ample storage. Navigation is easy. The default theme is kind of blah, but there are options to customize the look (haven't had time to do that yet). They recently changed to a third party app for uploading videos, so it isn't possible to embed a video anymore unless it is on youtube...a real disappointment. Adding content to the page is kind of a clunky process, and it is hard to arrange objects. Images can be resized easily, but it is hard to move and organize them without adding a table structure. Help is easy to get to and pretty...helpful.
Google Sites - It is hard to get away from Google...so may as well join them! Unfortunately, their website authoring is not easy to figure out. You can click to 'Edit Page', which seems to let you edit the layout rather than the content. I inserted a textbox easily, but now I can't get back in to edit the content of the box...I guess I'll get the hang of it eventually.
Weebly.com - seems pretty simple so far...nice drag and drop authoring, and clean and intuitive UI. Of course, as with all of them, if you want to do something fancy you have to pay for it.
Blogspot.com - changed to blogger.com awhile back...or was it the other way around...? Like a lot of the sites, they have single sign on with Google... a good idea, but sometimes Google gets really confused about who is signing in! (Must happen a lot...notice the link "Can't access your site?" right there in the login box...) And one of our blogs has gone missing...what's up with that!?
Creating a Merged Word Doc -
There's a story behind this skill...I was going to say it's a funny story, but it really isn't funny I guess, to anyone but me. Anyway, when Microsoft came out with one of their latest and greatest versions of Office, (I forget which one, it was a few years ago), they had made a major change to the way Merged Documents worked. For anyone who doesn't know what 'Merged Documents' is, (which is pretty much everyone, from what I can tell...and that's OK), the process combines Word and Excel and allows you to create Form Letters...you know, where a bunch of folks get the same letter, but each one is personalized with their name to make it look like there is only one letter and someone wrote it just to them.
