Creating websites with online services
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Introduction
Kinds of online services
The simplest way for creating a little website is to use one or several online services. We may distinguish several kinds:
- Site builder tools provided by your web hosting service
- If you happen to own a hosted domain name, you may check this out. Web hosting can be free, but usually you will have to pay a yearly fee.
- Most web hosting services provide a web site (home pages) builder tool. E.g. our favorite local provider uses PHP SiteBuilder. There exist cheap offers from companies like GoDaddy or HostGator (about $5/month) or Yahoo. GeoCities was a popular free service bough by Yahoo, but it is now discontinued.
- Blogging tools
- Blogs have become probably the major form of simple on-line publishing. While some people install their own bloggingware with their hoster, many use an online service like Blogger.
- Web 2.0 web hosting/creation services
- Your website will be hosted on some distant cloud and usually all configuration/editing work is done through web. A good examples is the free service provided by Google Sites.
- Web 2.0 social networking portals
- Your website is also hosted on some distant cloud, all configuration and editing is done through the web. The main purpose of the website is to support a community, e.g. a class (yes teacher use this) or a local hard rock fan community. The best known service is Ning.
Example services
Below we present some services. There exist many other alternatives.
Blogger / Blogspot
Features
- Examples
- Empty example used for demos: http://danielkschneider.blogspot.com/
- Others: Blogger is one of the top 10 or 20 websites. Explore Blogs of Note (from the blogger team).
The procedure aug 2009
- Installation
- Create a Google account (you may do this later)
- Go to http://blogger.com/
- Click on "Create a blog"
- Define a blog title
- Define the URL part (no blank spaces nor special characters)
- Choose from a template (you can change it later)
At this point you can start customizing or adding contents
- To find the settings of your blog
- From the Dashboard (blogs management), you should click on "View Blog".
- If you can see your blog, click on "customize" (top right) to enter the configuration page.
- Settings configuration
Click on the Settings tab. There exist a number of options (most are easy to understand and harmless).
- It is important to define who can comment (select the comments tab). It's a good idea to be restrictive, else you will get [[[spam]]med.
- You can define a custom domain (but that requires work with your domain name registrar or buying a domain name through google)
- You can add users that are allowed to edit (they also must have a google account)
- Layout configuration
Click on the Layout tab and play around with the various edit links. You first can try to change the page elements:
- the navigation bar
- configure the display of blog entries in the "Blog Posts" area.
- Add widgets (the ones provided by google or your own, e.g. there is a "basic widget" that will allow to insert HTML code. You can move placeholders up and down.
You then can change fonts and colors, or pick a new template before you do this. Advanced users can click on "Edit" HTML to define a new template, before you start playing with HTML code, read Can I edit the HTML of my blog's layout?
- Other information
With the same google account, you can manage several blogs. To do so click on the "Dashboard" link. You also may use it to read news from a blog roll (your favorite blogs).
Support and documentation
- Blogger help (Entry page for the official documentation)
- The official blogger buzz
- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogger_(service) Blogger (service) (Short Wikipedia overview article)
Google sites
“Google Sites is an online application that makes creating a team web site as easy as editing a document. With Google Sites, people can quickly gather a variety of information in one place -- including videos, calendars, presentations, attachments, and text -- and easily share it for viewing or editing with a small group, their entire organization, or the world.” (What is Google Sites?, retrieved 19:14, 13 August 2009 (UTC)).
Example (for demo purposes): danielkschneider
Features
- Select and configure a theme
- Create a page hierarchy. Create a page and then tell where it goes.
- Each subpage can be of a given type, e.g. WebPage, File Cabinet, Dashboard (widget inclusion), List)
- You may manage permissions
- Custom templates that you can edit
- Instead of using the web interface, you can publish to blogger with a variety of tools, e.g. MS Office 2007.
The procedure aug 2009
Requirements:
- This service is free
- You need a google account (if you don't have one, you will have a chance to create one)
- Go to http://sites.google.com/
- Create a new site. You will have to
- enter a site name and a site URL and optional site description
- Choose a theme
- Accept or change viewing permission
- Start creating pages
Note: To create other sites, click on the "My sites" link (top right)
Screenshot:
Support and documentation
- http://sites.google.com/support/
- http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html (video and examples)
Ning social networking
Netvibes webtop
Links
Free webhosting and webcontents services
- Freewebspace.net has a Free webhosting database. Some of these services include a web page generator/site builder.
- Weblog software (A list from Wikipedia, see the section Developer-hosted platforms).