Google Pages Google Sites is Google’s new service that is replacing Google Sites. I can’t say I used Google Pages a lot, but I did use Google Pages, in fact, I created a small, a very small website there. One of the best features of Google Pages, which is being replaced by Google Sites, was the widget feature. The widget feature let you embed mini programs into your webpage. I had embeded a app to check a Yahoo! email account, and an app that enabled you to chat with Hotmail contacts through a messenger, and a second one for Yahoo! contacts. It was cool, but I kinda abandoned it for my WordPress site. Now I wanted to come back and check on it, only to find that Google pages is being replaced by Google Sites. Google Sites, well, it’s pretty cool also. Google Sites does have some cool features that Google pages doesn’t though, like the ability to change your page’s background, text, links, clicked links, and other color options, something that I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do in Google Pages. Another cool feature Google Sites has is when you create a new page, you get to choose from Webpage, Dashboard, Announcements, File Cabinet and List. So whenever you create a new page you get a pre-made template, specific to what the pages function is.
Webpages is a simple blank webpage, at the start, but then you can add text, images, Gadgets, just like the ones from Google Pages, you can input HTML. You can insert a Table of Contents, A calendar, A word document, a Picassa web sideshow, a presentation, a spreadsheet and a spreadsheet form, and then there’s all those gadgets you can use, so many gadget. But that’s what you can do with a simple webpage.
Announcements work like a Blog, you click “New Post” and just like in a blog, you get a windows where you input text. But here’s something cool, you get every feature you get in the “simple” webpages in the announcements page, pretty cool.
Now the Dashboard is where you insert a bunch of gadgets, kinda the place you go to when you need to get something done. You can add gadgets for checking your Yahoo! email, chatting through MSN or Yahoo!, music players-all kinds of cool features.
File Cabinet is for storing files, mainly, but you can have that feature, and then have every feature of the “simple” webpage.
List is where you can add Action items. Action Items keep track of a meeting, or a project, or anything that changes. The Issue List is where you can track your projects issues. The Unit Status is for tracking the status of individual units in your project. Then finally there’s the Create your own option. In the Create your own option you can add as many columns as you want, then add Column/Field details. And every pre-set template offers the same functions as the “simple” webpage.
So that’s all the template webpages, Google Sites is pretty Cuil.
Now for some stuff I find annoying. I find that if I use a big gadget, then the bottom of the page wont get bigger. Now that’s not a major problem, but it’s big enough to steer some away. Another thing that bugs me is that you’re always seeing your blog as you would view it in your browser, with a little bar at the top with the options to create a new page, edit the page you’re on, or open the More actions menu, which houses some useful features. All in all Google Pages is pretty cool, full of great features, and very functional, but unfortunately I don’t think there’s any way for me to move from my WordPress website. And with 63 posts, 20 pages and 35 comments that I might move, I’m not doing it manually.
