Yes, I know that many people consider Microsoft FrontPage one of the WORST web site design programs ever, but hey, it was the program that I fell in love with after I grew out of Adobe PageMill in college. Well, after this weekend and oodles of problems with Bluehost, my love affair with FrontPage may finally be over.If you stopped by on either Friday or Saturday, you probably saw that this site was down. I’m still waiting for a response from Bluehost, but as far as I can tell, FrontPage just totally mucked up things with its mandatory “server extensions” (these allow me to edit my web site “live” and add helpful things like contact forms). I ended up going back to FTP all weekend to fix things. When you’re used to FrontPage’s instant editing capabilities, this is a real pain.
Turns out, after a little research, these FrontPage features aren’t all that special or unique. I finally figured out how to create a CGI form mailer (yes, that may sound too techy for some of our readers), and I read that the live editing capabilities I love may not be FrontPage dependent.
So now the question becomes this: if I switch to a different web editor, what program should I choose? I could get a great deal on an academic version of Microsoft Expression Web (I love being a teacher!), but should I waste my time with another Microsoft product? If there are any other web site design nuts out there, I’d appreciate some advice!
