iWeb ’08 and my other site

My first impressions after using the new iWeb are good. Its useful HTML widgets and integration with Google Adsense works smoothly. I used a JAXTR widget and also a Blogarithm panel for people to subscribe via email notifications. Better handling of images makes iWeb a bit faster.
I didn’t used embedded video or photo from my YouTube or Picasa Web Albums, but I’m thinking there will be no problem with that when I decide to use them. Or even with the mySkitch service.
About comments, I will keep my free Haloscan account and my free Statcounter account for web stats, so still iComment for me. And about that rare link for the RSS feed, still there. I still have to open the files with any editor (using Textwrangler here) and my old script worked fine.
I have to say that FTP uploading (Cyberduck) is going way to fast for what I expected. So I am a lot happier with this iWeb.
I’m planning to add an Skype Me button, but for now I’m very pleased with the final product of my site!

My iWeb ('06) site and FTP uploading

I must say it. I really like iLife's iWeb app. I know how to use Adobe Golive and Dreamweaver (in a very novice way) and I managed to make a professional site with both of them, but for what's worth, I like to make my family site with iWeb. It's easy to understand, everything is WYSIWYG.
Ok. Maybe it's not so easy for everyone, but I caught their way pretty fast. And that applies to other apps for Mac.
Anyway, back to the topic. When I write new entries to my site -blog or album catalog- I use "publish to folder" from the File menu. This function republishes all the site with a new date, so most of the time you end up uploading all your site over and over again, using an FTP uploader. I see this as a waste of time, band with and net traffic.
One of my big concerns was the fact that the link for the RSS was wrongly created by iWeb Publish to Folder. Dont' know why, but creates the link with a route to a non-existing folder (same name as the local publish folder but inside domain), where the rss.xml it's supossed to be. First I thought that it was a problem with the rss file. But after some time I realized that thing about the folder.
And what I had to do, was to open all the files with the rss.xml link and erase that phantom folder from the route. In my site I have one blog for my family stuff, and another one to write about everything that comes into my mind. So I have 2 blogs, that means 2 archives and 2 front pages. That makes 4 files with rss.xml with a bad link, 2 or 3 times per file.
So I used Textwrangler to do the job. When I finally got into it, I created a script to make Textwrangler to do the job for me!!!! It's just as simple to start recording the actions of selecting the 4 files, find "phantom folder", erase and save.
After that, I'm ready to FTP publish. Now I' using Cyberduck, opensource/donation ware, and after a few times managed to understand it. Just drag what I want to be uploaded into the FTP favourite of my site. Missing the two-panel view but not a problem at all. So, by now, I know what files and folders of my site changed each time I write. Most of the time is only blog and photos, so I just select these two to be updated. And that saves me the time of uploading the whole site each time.
I was looking forward to the new iWeb'o8 as it was said that they would improve something about FTP but that didn't happen. That leaves out the "one-click publishing" feature because only works with a .mac account. Hope at least the rss.xml problem is solved in this version.

Instead of having a .mac account

Since I started using my mac, I decided to try most of the apps that come pre-installed, and I also decided not to pay for a .mac account. Some may say that I'm losing the capabilities of synchronization or else, but I have a backup in a external hard drive (Ok, I have to make it more frequently, but that's not the point).

I decided not to use .mac just because I already have lots of services for free. I use a lot of Google services just with one account:

• Gmail, with almost 3 Gb storage space. And I set up Mail to download my two gmail accounts. Working just fine.
• Picasa Web Albums, now 1 Gb storage space for photos. And you can use the Picasa App for Mac or the Picasa plug-in for iPhoto. And works with my Blogger account, too. Works great.
• Google Calendar. Not as neat as the iCal but I need just to keep track on birthdays there. For my personal to do's i use iCal, I just need it at home.
• Google Reader for RSS subscriptions and you have a plug-in for Firefox to notify you as you open the browser.
• YouTube for my family videos.

The items above just count for the Google services I use but for example, you can use Google Browser Sync for Firefox to keep your bookmarks, cookies and history synchronized between two computers, and you also have del.icio.us but I haven't tried this one yet. For the newly added .mac feature called Groups, you have Google Groups. If you are interested in turning your gmail account in a storage device maybe you are interested in gDisk, donation ware. For backing up, if you search in Google, you will found a lot of alternatives.
And more, I registered my gmail in Microsoft .Net Passport, so I can still use the same email to sign in in MS Messenger (so bad they don't plan to further develop the mac version, one thing I miss is the voice, video and Remote Assistance from the windows version). Not a lot of my people have macs so iChat is out of the question, but for video and voice I use Skype for Mac.
For my personal website, I use iWeb's Publish to Folder and a free host (with a domain bought from doteasy). I agree that it's not very nice when FTP uploading the newly published site but I've already found a way to avoid not changed files. But I'll write about it in a future post. But using iWeb I can link my picasa albums here, as well as my youtube videos, and with iComment (license: 7 euros) you can use the free Haloscan comment service and the free StatCounter service. I'm only waiting to get my hands on iWeb'08 to revamp the site, insert some code and embed the photos (from my PicasaWeb, Flickr or Skitch) and the videos in the site.
And FYI, i know there is one service that works a lot like the .mac but it's a german site (so all in german). Anyway, if you're interested here it is Macbay. As for a free hosting service you can try the one I tried, Hostistry (UPDATE: This hosting service has died). I tried others but site never appeared on any browser on any computer.

Using Skitch

About a month ago, seeking those little special apps that exist for Mac, I found myself in a site with one call Skitch. They were giving invites in Mundo Mac (because still is in closed Beta) to be able to test it. They said that still they remained 9, so I wrote and after an hour I received my invite. This application, Skitch, was created by the same people of Comic Life. I haven't used Comic Life that much, but is an amusing application if you want to see your life becoming a comic. In that sense, Skitch has also that amusing side, and besides, is super easy to use (it's mostly visual). Here you have the video, directly from the site of the creative plasq.

I'm still thinking to whom I will give the invite I have left, as there is few people that know with a Mac, and of the 2 invites I had, one was for my little bro.