A new service called Homestead makes Web page creation so easy that you can whip up a personal home page in about an hour. Did we mention the magic word? It's free.
Homestead lets you build your own Web site--up to 5MB big--with no HTML programming and no software installations. The Homestead Editor feature works entirely through your Web browser as a Java applet. (You'll need Netscape Navigator 3.01 or higher, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.) Though the idea of online, on-the-fly Web creation isn't new, Homestead works very well, based on my tests of a beta version.
After you sign up at the Web site, you choose from over 40 Web site templates--résumé, family album, FAQ, and so on. Or you can start from scratch with a blank page.
From there, the Homestead Editor works like a bare-bones desktop publishing program. You can drag and drop elements (buttons, text boxes, background fields) from the toolbar onto your page, and resize them. You can import your own text and images, and hotlink any text or image to other Web sites. Homestead even offers integrated chat services, so you can run a chat room on your page.
Given the usually schizophrenic performance of Java applets, Homestead's use of the technology is impressive. I created a basic résumé page, with imported text and images, in about 45 minutes. The applet-based process never stalled or crashed my browser, Navigator 4.0. The aesthetically plain pages are saved as basic HTML documents on Homestead's servers.
Pages can be password protected, and access rights to edit a page can be granted to as many as 20 people. Features such as these make the service handy for a club or workgroup setting. One more plus: Homestead doesn't profit from banner ads, so you won't see pop-up advertisements in your personal Web page.
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