Tag: homepage

Blog sites

Next lesson in my computer/internet school. This time I thought I’d cover blogging sites. When I first heard of blogging it seemed alien to me. Then I tried it and couldn’t make it work, but eventually, I got the bug. Now I can’t imagine not blogging when I feel inspired. Of course, blogging requires a blog site, or software and a website and most of all a blog platform.

My favorite blog platform is WordPress. Yay! I absolutely adore WordPress. WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

The difference is that WordPress.com is a sort of web hotel, where you get your WP blog hosted for free. It does mean you get fewer choices in blog themes, plugins, widgets etc. You might also have trouble directing your domain name to your WP blog. Domain name – well, properly that should be covered in a separate post, one about homepages, webspace and, well, domain names. I’m not going to do that though. This is it. Blogs and homepages covered in one single blog post.

The reason for that is that today, most people hardly know what a homepage is and have trouble creating one. Even as late as a year ago, I was stubbornly sticking to my homepage and wanted to program it myself, using an editor, naturally. I’m not that good with html programming. Then it hit me – why should I do all the ground work, when my ‘thing’ is writing, primarily, and to some extent, photography?

I have come to the conclusion, that while I would love to make a blog theme 100 % as I like it, there are so many themes out there, that I can be pretty content with one someone else made.

Anyway, back to the domain name. It doesn’t have to be that expensive, if you want one. There’s no reason why you should need one, but if you do want one, it’s easy to get and won’t cost you too much. Unfortunately, there’s a catch. When isn’t there? It could be a bit tricky, configuring it. I’m afraid I can’t help you there, but there should be help available online.

You can also get a domain name for free. It won’t be a ‘real’ domain name, but it will shorten your URL and make it easier to remember. Uni.cc and cjb.net are the ones I’ve tried. Both work fine.

For a homepage, you’ll need webspace and if you don’t mind ads, you can get some for free. If not, there should be web hotels that have reasonable prices. My family and I are lucky enough to have found one that doesn’t charge much but offers a lot of space.

You’ll also need a web editor. There are some available online for free. I can’t tell you how good they are, because I haven’t tried them, but I’ve been told they’re quite good. Finally, you’ll need an ftp program, unless your webspace offers a web based file upload option.

Let’s get back to blogging. You’ll still need webspace if you decide to get your blog software from WordPress.org and if you like, a domain name. The upside is you get to choose any theme you like and you can get plugins and widgets.

The main advantage of both WP types is the ease of updating, editing etc. It’s a breeze compared to editing in a web editor. That’s why I decided in favor of a blog, rather than an old-fashioned homepage.

Homepage or dodo?

Soon it won’t be any use, having a homepage. No one visits homepages anymore.

First WebRing started charging for their services. If you didn’t pay you could only have something like five rings – I had over eighty, and I still didn’t get that many hits. You also wouldn’t be able to manage more than three rings – I used to have about ten or so.

There are a couple of other places that provide rings, but that doesn’t help much. Top lists are something else you can join to, presumably, get mor hits. Guess what – no visitors from there either.

My sister and I have made our own personal web pages, and some other, larger sites. One of the latter gets a few more hits, but not even that adds up to a whole lot. We even pay for web hotels and domain names. Ok, we’re doing all this because we think it’s fun and we still think it’s fun, even without any visitors. Of course, we might as well play with our little homepages on our own little computers, without paying anything extra to keep them online for no one to visit.

Some of you might say ‘so update more often’ – but I do, especially my blog, which is a part of my homepage. Besides, I see no reason to add metatags like sex, girls etc. There’s nothing about that sort of thing on my homepage. I also don’t provide files for illegal download. Not legal downloads either.

But what do I expect? People don’t even know the difference between homepage, blog and profile page. My sister teaches high school students and some of them think that the little symbol that says Internet on the computer desktop actually means the Internet, not the WEB BROWSER Microsoft Internet Explorer. Hello? These are almost grown up students who are taking computer related subjects in school.

Here is my own little mini computer school:

Homepage:- personal page that you design – either with a WYSIWIG editor or if you know html programming (web design) a text editor. You can put your homepage on some free web space – like the one that you get with your internet connection (not everyone gets that) or a free web space provider. Or you could pay to keep your site on a web hotel. Ours costs about 10 dollars per year and for that you get quite a lot of space. The domain names cost a bit more, say 20 to 30 dollars per year.

Blog – a sort of online diary or something more creative. Usually updated more often than a web page.

Profile page: a brief presentation you can fill in when you join an online community. You can upload a photo of yourself and fill in some info about yourself. The page is made up of pre-written modules with a space for your own input. You can usually pick a couple of background themes, but all the profiles look roughly the same.

In my experience some guys know all kinds of programming languages, including flash for animations that slow a web page down, but they have no idea what to put on a homepage. Those of them who do have a home page, usually just put their CV there. These guys clearly have no hobbies or interests. Others, along with quite a few girls, have things to say, but don’t know that much about web design.

Not that it matters. Whatever you know or don’t know, no one will visit your site or leave a message in your guestbook. No one knows what a homepage is anyway..