Goofed on Googlepages

I published an article that said web pages could be prepared with KompoZer and uploaded to Googlepages. While that is kind of true my experience yesterday leads me to put that approach in the “too hard to be worth it” pile. Sorry if it made you crazy.

Been there, done that

Before I recommend something to you or say "Here’s how to do it," I like to have tested it. That isn’t easy for someone who has not lost his amateur status in web authoring. I never professed to be an expert but try to be a responsible novice poster child for WYSIWYG HTML editing. The logic is, “If I can do it so can you.”

I tested the concept before I said you could prepare and upload pages to Google and Yahoo. Been there, done that but times change and things continue to “improve.” I tried to do it yesterday I found that Googlepages will upload HTML files but the home page is an issue. The home page needs to be made with Page Creator.

Update January 2009: I was surprised to learn that Google pages are being phased out in favor of Google Sites. I'm not sure what that means but one thing I read in a support group said there would be no FTP upload of web pages. Fortunately neither of the two sites I have on Google Pages involve much of a creative or intellectual investment. I keep other pages on Atspace.com, a free server.

Editing web pages per se is a real issue at Googlepages. I could not load a page in Page Creator with either the latest edition of Firefox or my crusty-rusty IE6. Google discussion group chatter suggests this is a confusing and persistent problem. Given this difficulty my question is, “Why bother?”

There are other free hosts on the web. The Wysi Free site is hosted by Atspace.com. Atspace isn’t the only free host without advertising but it works for me.

Free KompoZer Downloads

January was another good month for downloads of the free, open source, web authoring tool. KompoZer earned 104,014 downloads last month from the SourceForge site I use as a barometer. You can find KompoZer at other sites but the project web site, KompoZer.net, links to SourceForge for downloads.

You can also find a KompoZer portable edition at Portableapps.com. Why have a portable KompoZer? The project site at Portableapps says it best:

“KompoZer Portable / Nvu Portable is an easy-to use web editor packaged with a PortableApps.com launcher as a portable app. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.”

Interesting to note the staying power of portable Nvu. Last year 166,000 copies of portable Nvu were downloaded while KompoZer downloads were 117,000. Nvu has not been updated since its release years ago and there is no development. KompoZer’s latest release, 0.7.10, is now featured on the portable site. Continued improvements to KompoZer are planned.

Silly Computer Tricks

I put portable Firefox and portable KompoZer on my flash drive to test web pages on other computers. My computer remembers too much. When I mess up file addresses it will still show me a complete web page.

I know this has happened to you: Your web page looks fine and continues to look fine when you publish it to the web. The next day pictures don’t appear and links to your other pages are broken. This is probably the most common rookie mistake. The nice guy who helped resolve the issue in my mind when I first started put some pages on the web for all of us.

Your computer knows where local files are and default settings on your machine will make pages look different from the way they will appear on my machine. By taking portable apps to a different machine you can put your web pages to a real test.

If your web site isn’t published yet you can put your pages on a thumb drive and run them on another computer. By using portable applications you are sure to have all the resources you need for quick repairs.

Sorry that I goofed on Google.

Wysi

; .