Looking for web host with site building tools that are web browser-based

[UstadKhanAli]

The Tibet Connection Radio Show, which I edit for, is looking for a web host that offers site building tools that are web browser-based. IOW, you can edit or add to your site through their site building browser. We're looking for a reliable host that has very easy-to-use, non-aggravating, extremely functional site building capabilities.

 

We have looked at web.com, but feel that their site builder is cumbersome, and are looking for something better. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thank you very much!

 

P.S. I know a few of you are thinking, "Well, you already know how to use FrontPage and FTP and all that...so what do you need that for?" And you'd be right. But it's not just for me. It's for seven or eight people all over the world to use, and most of them don't know how to create a website through FrontPage or HTML, and don't have FTP programs.

[Duddits]

Apple iWeb (requires iLife) or Google sites (requires nothing).

[Lee Flier]

GoDaddy has good hosting and quite a few different options for site building. There are a lot of content management systems like Joomla that you can have automatically installed and then anybody can update the content from their browser.

[UstadKhanAli]

I've gotten several thumbs up for Go Daddy so far.

 

Thank you for the suggestions.

 

Going up north for a week for a much-needed vacation. See you all then!!

[Ernest Buckley]

Hey Ken-

I use iWeb for my own site. I know nothing about web design so the program is great because its easy. Peace and enjoy your vacation.

EB

[blue2blue]

I have some client sites on GoDaddy. Hard to beat on price, particularly for what you get on the backend (server-side programming, database, etc).

 

One of those client sites uses the free Community Server widgets for an internal communication forum. (I found my customers hard to deal with because of mixed communications, cascading email exchanges, misunderstandings, missed details. Putting important exchanges, change requests, formatting specs, etc, in a private message board format really helped.)

 

It works -- but it's somewhat slow. (Seems like I read about some performance/stability issues with Joomla, too.)

 

Previously I'd installed and set up an instance of the WebWiz board (classic ASP, can't even remember the DB backend) which was a bit of work -- but it performed far better than the Community Server forum on GD, for the most part. (Of course, that could a server performance issue, as well. Certainly, co-factors.)

 

 

 

With regard to iWeb: I've seen some attractive sites developed with it -- Ernest's is quite handsome -- but it generates a very poor quality of code from the point of view of maintainability, size, complexity, etc.

 

The problem is that it embeds a jillion specific formatting tags using inline CSS, which is pretty much (otherwise) universally seen as very bad practice. Far better would be to use a single CSS style sheet to format the whole site, separating content from markup.

 

That said, it's free, folks enjoy using it, and as long as rendering efficiency, ease of maintenance, revisability, extension or team development are not considerations, no reason not to use it.

[Will Chen]

 

With regard to iWeb: I've seen some attractive sites developed with it -- Ernest's is quite handsome -- but it generates a very poor quality of code from the point of view of maintainability, size, complexity, etc. The problem is that it embeds a jillion specific formatting tags using inline CSS, which is pretty much (otherwise) universally seen as very bad practice. Far better would be to use a single CSS style sheet to format the whole site, separating content from markup.

 

 

I concur. However, the level of developer that would be interested in iWeb probably doesn't care too much about web standards or clean code. Doesn't Mozillia offer a Firefox plug-in webdesigner?

[Ernest Buckley]

 

However, the level of developer that would be interested in iWeb probably doesn't care too much about web standards or clean code.

 

 

Yes, for someone like me who knows nothing about site design and has no desire to learn it (at least right now), iWeb is the perfect choice.

[blue2blue]

Absolutely. And Ernest has come up with a handsome site, no question. [i did notice some quirky behavior from the menu

 

[revised after I did some fascinating study on iWeb]

 

I see that iWeb doesn't allow any direct access to the code from within the app and that it regenerates the code every time you publish, effectively overwriting any changes you might have made to the code in order to include web 2.0 widgets and the like or customizations not available inside iWeb and its template oriented system. (It does include some prerolled widgets as I understand it that conform to its drag and drop UI.)

 

So, since you effectively can't modify the code for an iWeb site from outside the app (without having to 'manually' re-do all your tinkerings every time you republish your iWeb site) that negates the code maintainability complaint, I guess.

 

It also sounds like, as long as you can get the styles you want out of the iWeb system, that making global changes will be done by hard-code spewing robots. Hopefully, that makes global as well as specific changes relatively easy.

 

But the code the robots spew is also clearly highly inefficient, since it's not just extraordinarily redundant -- increasing bandwidth and processing overhead -- but it requires a lot of CSS parsing and rule comparison. Don't forget CSS is a hierarchy of rules that was designed for greatest code efficiency. Every new rule must be nested in the hierarchy. When there's a new rule on each line or in on each paragraph as often happens in iWeb code, it greatly increases the overall rendering overhead. (Not unsurprisingly, perhaps, given everything else, it also does its layout using tables and spacer images. Let's not even go there.)

 

Like any hierarchical system designed for efficiency, if there is a fundamental flaw in the design -- such as using numerous redundant rules where a single, over-arching rule would do instead, the system might work, but it will be highly inefficient.

 

I'd love to be privy to the thinking that went into the design of this product, since it seems like they would almost have to bend over backwards to build this kind of obtuse over-complexity into it. It seems like it would have been far easier to write a web publisher app that used CSS the right way instead...

[deanmass]

I'd go with google....nothing required, ubiquitous, and scalable.

 

GoDaddy can be a little mercenary....Check out their policy of freezing domains.

 

You could also host somewhere and run wordpress.

[blue2blue]

With re GoDaddy's anti-spam policies:

 

You definitely do not want to get caught spamming from a GD account, particularly if it's registered through them.

 

They have what they say is a zero-spam tolerance policy.

 

None of my customers have ever had any problems with them (nor have I -- in fact, they've been really helpful the couple of times I needed something extra or a question asked). I have pointed out to them that they should be very careful about avoiding anything that could be considered spam.

 

And I'm pretty much in agreement with GD's stated anti-spamming policy.

 

 

I actually read a lot about that issue before I put my first client on GD.

 

The one guy who has written the most about it -- spewed endlessly, really -- was someone who was out and out spamming (to my way of thinking) sending unsoliticted mass emails out to the contacts for domain names asking them if they wanted to "trade link listings" (a way of faking web traffic and importance).

 

Now, he had a whole BUNCH of domain names he'd registered under a bargain-come-on pricing and they were all spamming and they all got locked and hit with a spam-penalty which, if I recall correctly, effectively locked up his scores of spam-generating domains, since he didn't want to pay for all the spam he'd sent.

 

That guy absolutely spewed outrage and bile all over the web -- his posts turned up everywhere -- and, for sure, it made me think twice.

 

But I didn't, at that time, find any legitimate folks (to my thinking) who felt they'd been abused by the anti-spam policy.

 

But if anyone knows of such reliable first hand accounts, I would be very interested in pursuing it. I don't want to subject my clients to any risks we both don't understand 100%.

 

________________

 

 

With regard to the original task and requirements, something like Google Sites or another third party, Web 2.0 style widget service, might well be just the thing.

[datatrond]

I would like to recommend Siteground.

Affordable prices, stable servers and fast lines.

 

They also support Joomla CMS.

Joomla gives you the opportunity to use ready to use templates.

 

Take a look at My Joomla website for an illustration of the possibilities you've got.

If you want to build a community solution this is also possible with Joomla CMS.

Siteground also support Wordpress and a lot of other web authoring tools.

 

You may install Joomla CMS very easy through the web-based administrator tool.

 

Good luck! :-)

[blue2blue]

Your site looks great datatrond! Except it seems to be filled with some sort of nonsense/gibberish text. :D

 

 

Since this thread was fresh back in April, I've played around some more with Joomla on my own Windows/IIS site (Linux sites are probably an easier fit than Windows for Joomla but you can usually get things to work, looks like). It can provide a big leg up at putting together a modern, dynamic site without having to do any real programming.