The design of the templates of iWeb looks pretty neat and I created a blog that I was happy with. Then I uploaded it and then I started getting a little skeptical. First of, the site was very slow, I asked some friends and they said the same thing. The fonts had a different color than they had in iWeb and some of the links also had different colors. This might be a minor thing, but when Apple locks everything so thight that you even can't access the HTML code, it better work. Then there were absolute no statistics information, you could but a web counter there, but that looks to old school. So I went to check out Google analytics to compliment my solution, but you had to put some HTML into your page, witch in iWeb I don't get access to. I found a work around for this with applescript, but it turned me off. The last thing that bugged me was the internet adress I got, it looked like this: http://web.mac.com/ivar.brekke/pitofknowledge/Tech_blog/Tech_blog.html. Soon Apple will replace .mac with .me and call it MobileMe, but exept that, they are still going to use the same clumsy adress, It's to long and it's not practical.All this made me look for another solution, and after trying out blogger, I found it so much more open and accessible than iWeb. All the problems I had with iWeb went away. It was fast, I could quickly edit the HTML, and http://pitofknowledge.blogspot.com is a far better address. Blogger is also a free service while .mac cost 99$.
The one thing that was better at .mac was the design templates. But is that worth all the trouble? I'm setting upp a poll on the right side, you decide.
10 comments:
omg your title alone. are you reading my mind. i'm just about to start blogging and i have the same exact question. if your advice isn't good then you suck! jk. hehe
I love iWeb and nearly everything Mac, and yes do have a personal Web site made with iWeb. That being said though, I agree, iWeb can be cumbersome when you just want to do something straightforward like blog. I love it for its other capabilities though. I also know nothing about code.
You may already know this, but it is possible to embed small bits of code in iWeb as HTML widgets...that little feature made iWeb flexible enough for what I wanted to do with my own page...
Very interesting since I've done the opposite. I've had a blog at blogspot since 2005 but have just changed to using iWeb and the new MobileMe serive. It is slightly annoying when you view your completed blog in Safari or indeed IE and there are different colours and fonts but I've tried to use standard fonts which every computer should have by default.
Regards the HTML input. iWeb '08 allows you to add HTML elements in the page but alas you can't edit straight into the page's HTML other than post-publishing to a local folder, but then all your changes would be wiped once you publish again.
Regards the URL which iWeb and MobileMe give you, I was a bit sceptical too, but simply I can give out "web.me.com/somhairle" to people and it will take them straight to my blog.
I hope you're happy with Blogger. I was, and I think I'm going to miss using it.
Alternatively you can make your iWeb site then simply imbed your blogger blog via a frame page into the iWeb site. Kinda the best of both worlds.
I did this with Wordpress to get the mobile blogging ability and the overall superior features of Wordpress but I also wanted to retain the other elements of iWeb.
And how do you do this?
"Alternatively you can make your iWeb site then simply embed your blogger blog via a frame page into the iWeb site."
It seems each blogging tool iWeb, Blogger, WordPress and others have features that we all wish were in the other tool. I really like Blogger and Wordpress because you can blog from anywhere as they are web based. You can even use a smartphone. I like iWeb because you can have multiple blogs on one site and include other web pages as well to create a full site. The downside with iWeb you need to always publish from a Mac. Hopefully, Apple will have some kind of web based interface in the future.
iWeb '08 has come a long way and being able to embed HMTL code, you can now add Google Analytics to your pages so you can track visitors. Also you can add Google AdSense ads which is built into iWeb. Blogger can do the same.
You have to just choose what is right for you and then start blogging. I guess it's the blog content that's the most important at the end of the day. I decided to be hard core Mac and went with iWeb '08. It's been great so far.
I've been blogging with Blogger for about a year, and have started finding it too restrictive as well. I am in process of migrating to Wordpress, on my own domain name/ hosting, so my web address will simply be my domain name, and will take you to the blog, portfolio, and etc altogether, like a real website. IWeb's templates are great for that, but Wordpress offers free templates that are HTML customizable and offer the flexibility I need, too. Now if the migration part works out OK...
I haven't done this, but MobileMe does have the ability to host your domain name, so your address can be www.yourdomain.com instead of web.me.com/you
A very simple method for adding google analytics code to your iWeb site is located here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/addgoogleanalyticsaction.html
Seriously, it's one click and you're done.
I've blogged on Blogger for four years, but just moved my author site http://www.eileenflanagan.com to iWeb this spring. I also liked the design and the ease of making all my book pictures the same size without messing with html, but I'm not getting any search engine traffic! I'm thinking about moving the whole site to Wordpress and then moving my blog over there. I'm after there are things I'll miss about iWeb though. There seems to be no perfect solution.
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