The Shutterbug test

Today I’ve been fooling around with Shutterbug (Xtralean) web design program. When I first read about it, it looked like it was going to be easy and quick, and with its featured Xtra boxes for inserting external services as counters, ads, comments....

Hmmm.... For a Demo, you have nice and simple templates. But things are not always what they seem. I was trying to, somehow, re-create my actual site made in iWeb. You can change a lot the templates and that I consider a plus but... after an hour, and this looking for help in their forum and user manual still can’t find the way to make a blog!!!!

I created a welcome page and that’s, more or less, fine for now. Then I’ve made a Group for photo albums and a Group for what’s supposed to be the blog. I also manage to create and album but I’m not very pleased with it.

... (time break)...

After going through the online user manual, I now know how to create Xtra boxes for HTML and other stuff like creating RSS feed, but still can’t get the way for a blog with entries as I did in iWeb. So I looked again in the Internet, and came across an almost clear definition for what Shutterbug does: it’s the perfect tool for quick galleries for journalism or photographers. So, no easy blog with Shutterbug.

That’s all for today.

When I tried iWeb

I’m not a web designer but I’m very curious and love the Internet. Back in the nineties, I made a very simple page with Frontpage in Windows. After that, my second experience with webpages was a bit different.

First year of the PhD, each student had to make a website for their own city. We had some introduction about HTML and then started with Dreamweaver. I wasn’t difficult and the city page looked just like had to. But that’s all I learnt about web creation and web designing.

Then I tried to keep my far away family informed about my life through the web. So I used Blogger; after that I used Yahoo 360, and then Live spaces. But I wanted something more customizable.

So one of the things I wanted to try was iWeb. As I don’t have a .mac account, I publish to a folder and then, using another program (Easy iWeb Uploader – Shareware) upload the site and blog via FTP. I must say, it’s pretty easy to have a good-looking personal website with iWeb. But then you want more.

After the first entries, I decided to add a visit counter and to have comments. So I register with Haloscan and Statcounter, both free. How do you use this in iWeb? It’s not difficult but you have to remember to use the additional program that makes this possible (iComments – Demo). And you have two other programs (iWeb Enhancer –Demo- and iWeb More –Shareware) to add a lot of stuff like Flicker, Google Ads and more, but I didn’t try them. If you don’t run the program after each and every time you publish the site to a folder, you won’t see those things working on the published website.

I would love this kind of features integrated into iWeb, but I’m not sure if it’s ever going to happen, as the iWeb is prepared to be fully integrated with a .mac account, where you can have the counter and the comments without worrying to enrol outside services and running other programs.

And yes, I’ve been thinking a lot about having a .mac account, but for me, I don’t think it’s worth. My Gmail account has lot more space. And you can have a lot of free services if you know where to look.

So now I’m looking forward in trying the 3 demos I’ve downloaded: Rapidweaver (may need some add-ons); Sandvox (you must go Pro for the advanced features); and Shutterbug. The 3 have the FTP fully integrated, that’s a plus I like.

There are other web creation applications like Goldfish, Flux or Freeway (Express and Pro). And for blogs creation you have iBlog or Wordpress. If none of the 3 demos convince me, later will see.

I have an Apple Mac now!!!

I switched to Mac early this year when we needed to change the slow old computer, but thinking in the new Intel Macs as we had to stuck with Windows because we still need to use very few software (but very important to us) made only for this OS. I knew something about Apple computers, I used one in my last work; the place where I used to read emails some years ago used Mac, too, and my brother had one I loved. I knew, that they were a bit different, not only in design and style but in price and performance. But anyway, as my birthday present, I bought the iMac Intel Core Duo.

I can’t say how happy I am with this machine. I amazed with its performance, the Mac OS loads 4 times faster than the Windows OS, it never crashes and very few times software stuck but you can always recover the work done.

I have discovered a new of doing things and have to say that I like it. Ok, I say I have to keep my win xp because of the very few software I need. Two of them are Autocad and 3D Studio, and yes, I did try with other CAD software like Archicad and Vectorworks and there is still something that I miss from Autocad in both of them, that’s the UCS function; and for the 3D, I’m really not in the mood for learning something new like Maya or 4D Cinema or even Solidworks. The other one is Freecall, offering the cheapest VoIP calls I found (they say in their site they are working in more OS but no news for now). But for everything else I have great programs for Mac and they so easy to use.

So, from now on I’m staying with Mac forever (and keep asking the programmers of the few win software I use to work on Mac development!).