> Home Page Computers & Communications
CVS Fife - 23-27 Randolph Street, Buckhaven KY8 1AT (Map)
T: 01592 567001 - F: 01592 567009 - E: cvsfife@cvsfife.org
Free Website Anyone?
The traditional way to get your organisation online has been to buy a domain name, buy Frontpage or Dreamweaver to build your site (or pay someone else to do it for your!) and then pay a monthly charge to have your pages hosted on the web.
Here we are going to look at a few options that will let you build your own site, get a domain name and have the lot hosted for free.
Some of you have already created a web site with Digital Fife. Others may have looked at it and thought that it might not be powerful enough for your needs. Since the project began in 2003 there have been many new facilities and features added to allow the creation of quite sophisticated sites:
- Easy build navigation menus
- Variety of layouts and colour schemes
- Picture galleries and slide shows
- Video clips
- Quizzes
- No specialised skills required
Training is available to help you get your web site up and running - this includes a selection of online training modules on the Digital Fife website - www.digitalfife.com.
The makers of the world's most popular search engine have been busy with a variety of other projects: Google Earth, Gmail, Blogger, Calendar and now Google Pages.
Though still in the beta testing stages, you can sign up and create your own web site. You will need a Google Gmail account to register (contact me for help with this). Once registered you get a free Domain Name in the form: http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com - I have created a demo page at http://cvsfifeict.googlepages.com.
Google pages is still in its infancy so more features will be added to those currently available:
- Wide variety of quality templates and layouts
- Column layouts that make sidebar type menus possible
- Simple set of controls to edit the pages
- As you develop skills, there is provision to edit/enter HTML directly
Google Page Creator - http://pages.google.com
At the moment this is only available to the US but will become available to the rest of the world in late 2006.
The "Live Basics" option will provide the following:
- Free domain name - or transfer your existing one
- 5 email accounts
- Easy to use editor
- Web visitor statistics
Live Basics will be provided for free but you will need to register your credit card with Microsoft - they say this is to validate every customer is a legitimate entity.
Microsoft's web site has in-depth information about Live Basics and you can view a demo movie that highlights some of the features.
Live Basics is the free, entry level site builder. If your needs are more sophisticated there are "Online Collaboration" and "Essentials" but these will incur a charge of approx £20 ($29.95) per month. Check http://officelive.microsoft.com.