Episode #93


IWEB…The next step?

Hi Leo, Long time watcher, first time writer – and all that… I maintain a personal web page (www.ctdesign.com.au) using iWeb and am stating to get frustrated by its limitations. I also maintain my works website (www.evogenix.com.au) using Macromedia Contribute 3 and even though it is not as sexy a program it is great to be able to firstly upload changes and new pages without having to use an ftp client (like cyberduck) and easily update one page at a time. When I make changes to my personal site I have to either load the entire site or section again – depending on the mood of cyberduck… I guess what I am asking is… what is the next best step up from iWeb for a Mac Maniac? I like the drag and drop ease of iWeb and the way that blog pages and templates etc are already set up for you to use however I don’t like the fact that if you choose not to have a Mac account you have to publish to a folder and then upload with cyberduck. I want to be working on my site and press upload page or publish site and it just work. Also, I am just a person not a corporation so I don’t want to spend $800.00 nor do I want to have to study a bachelor of computer-geek-ology to figure out how to use it… am I asking too much? Hope to hear from you soon. Cheers

Cecilia, Bonnet Bay, NSW



I discourage iWeb because it’s a dead end. An iWeb site must always be an iWeb site - you can’t easily port it to other web design tools.

I generally don’t recommend desktop web design tools since static web sites are inflexible and hard to maintain. Take a look at running Wordpress for your web site. You can update it very easily and need only design it once.

For the design part I highly recommend Panic Software’s Coda. It’s inexpensive and a great tool for doing HTML and CSS.

www.wordpress.com