Old skin, new grin

Post date: Mar 8, 2011 3:39:52 AM
updated: July 30, 2022 1:14:21 AM

This website enjoys now new hosting at google and a different approach to manage information flows. Here is a generational story about marriage of data and technology.

static age: 1999-2004

dynamic age: 2004 to 2022

The trade-offs of the move in 2011 are huge.

On the downside it is 1. back-falling to semi-static site management. The list of native control elements is very limited. AFAIK, there hasn't been much changed since 2006 (the time Google acquired company that came up with the idea of template site management). 2. There is no easy way to tweak site appearance. As a result the design is somewhat broken even after applying dirty hacks. The native template adjustment feature is less than adequate. 3. There is no facility to manage multiple languages. I will miss this feature of Contrexx CMS. 4. There are no robust native blog features, no seamless integration with Google-native Blogger, in particular with the user commenting service.

On the upside it is 1. integration with online office, photo sharing services, etc. In one word it is service layering approach. Developers create widgets that can be added to the mix from central repository like from a Market feature on cell phones. The widgets stitch different internet services (see photo gallery on the site for example). 2. Hopefully the service will be robust? At least statistically, I expect performance comparable with yahoo, i.e. another 6 years until the service is closed or merged into something else. 3. Upgradeabliity. The fall down of web hosting sites with a one-year regularity was a bad thing. But break down of customized PHP code after each upgrade of CMS system was even worse. I hope this time I'll save a lot of time on upgrades and can deliver you more of my great content.

Update 2022:

The trade-off of recent google sites downgrade are horrifying. The downside is that the site's UI customization is crippled to barely acceptable. Look for historical outlook below. All automation content framing has gone. It makes a headache how to manage documents and blog entries.

The upside is that site structuring and page management is now via admin space in contrast to user space earlier. And it has become simpler and leaner. The page design is being automatically adjusted to various end user devices.

Fazit: Fast forward to the past, into the static age. The recent engine is more practical for visit card pages. A more complex content management asks for self-hosted solutions.