Homework!

Make videos!

Just like this:




Rebeckham should make a video for this

Sairan should make a video of this - and I see he has done:



Beavis should make a video of this

He has - Lex...SUPERSTAR!



Long should make a video of this

Bibi should make a video of this

Anastasia should make a video of this

Aidana should make a video of this

Rinat should make a video of this

David should make a video of this

Dima should make a video of this

This is what the site is about:

Like a cross between YouTube, Wikipedia and the OED, Wordia is a multimedia online dictionary to which anyone can provide the definitions. Think of a word that has a special meaning to you, then video yourself explaining what it means and upload the clip to Wordia. Other users can then rate and comment on your video, with the most popular contributions flagged on the homepage. Entries are also accompanied by written definitions and synonyms to ensure the word is understood. Wordia has a smart, minimalist interface that makes it a pleasure to use, while content is already building nicely. We particularly like the guy who raps his definition of ‘fermata’, and the lady who describes ‘incest’ as “the love I feel for my cousin Cuthbert”.

Also you should build your own website. Here are some choices:

Choice One:

Web Address: www.synthasite.com


SynthaSite is a very powerful tool and, to look at it, you'd be forgiven for believing it to be a computer-based application rather than a website running in a browser.
The service is very reliant on templates but there are a lot to choose from and they vary from fun and funky to classy and cool. Every now and then you'll stumble across a template that has a bit of flexibility – offering the ability to change the background image, for example – but those who want to exercise their design flair will still find it restrictive. The rest of us, however, should be satisfied with a great-looking site that is very difficult to break by fiddling.

All other aspects of your site are configurable. You can add pages, choosing whether they should automatically appear in menus, and include any content you like, such as widgets (maps, Google ads, videos and images from popular sharing sites – and much more besides), or images and text from your hard disk. If your images need tweaking, Picnik (www.picnik.com) is integrated for fine tuning.

The most amazing thing about the service is that it's completely free. You don't get any adverts on your site, and you can host your own if you've got a Google AdSense account. The company behind the service promises that it will stay that way – everything that's currently free will stay free, though extra paid-for services may be added in the future.

Choice two:

Web Address: www.doodlekit.com


Doodlekit is relatively restrictive in its free offering, with a simple site that consists of just a homepage, a blog, a photo album and five other pages of your choice – if you want more, you'll have to pay. However, you do get a choice of great designs that you can configure if you know a bit of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

Editing the site is very easy – log in and you'll find buttons to edit each section of content. By installing a plug-in for your browser, you get a sophisticated editor that isn't reliant on loading from the web every time. You can also organise pages as you like and arrange how they will appear in your site's menus.


Choice three:

Web Address: www.weebly.com


Weebly offers a drag-and-drop approach to building a web page and specialises in pulling content from other websites like YouTube, Flickr and Google Maps. The trouble is that some of the widgets don't seem to fit properly while you're putting a site together, though it all seems to work out when you publish it. It also has tool tips which bounce around the screen when you open new options – they'd be less troublesome if they didn't bounce quite so much.

Better elements include the new page option, which lets you choose whether pages should feature in the navigation or not, and the ability to reorder pages by dragging and dropping. There are also someattractive templates to choose from.

Choice four:

Web Address: www.350.com


350pages sounds like a lot but, predictably, you don't get this many with the free service – it's actually only 15. There seems to be a good range of templates until you notice that some of them are only there to tempt you into the paid-for service, which is something of an annoying theme with 350pages. It has some powerful features like a built-in image processor, but the constant look-what-you-could've-won pestering brings it down.


Choice five:
Web Address: http://pages.google.com


It's not often that a Google service comes this low down in a comparison test. However, it's not because Google Pages is particularly bad, just that the competition is so much better. Page creation is straightforward but linking pages into sites is laborious, as there's no automatic-navigation creation to help you out. The ability to paste in Google Gadgets is nice, though, not least because of the enormous variety on offer.

Choice six:

Web Address: www.tripod.lycos.co.uk


Tripod was one of the original free site-hosting services and it's developed in a very sophisticated direction. It now offers advanced features like PHP5 and MySQL – the programming and database technologies you need to install advanced sites like WordPress (www.wordpress.org). Because of this, however, its own site-building software has slipped behind the pack, and it lacks the dynamism or ease-of-use of its rivals.

The above are FREE - but you could buy a kit....

Web Address: www.magix.com/uk


Building a decent website has never been the easiest of tasks – there's an ever-increasing number of technological hurdles to get over before you can even think about getting your site online. Site-building software can make things easier but it often entails sacrificing certain key elements of the web-building process in order to work. This balancing act between ease of use and features is where the best software can make a difference. The previous version of Magix Website Maker won a Web User Gold Award – does the latest version still stand out from the pack?

Features
The first thing you'll notice about the software is that, although it comes in a box, the installation is minimal and most of the business of designing a website is done online (if you're using dial-up, just forget it). This has its benefits, though – changes and additions are uploaded as you work so there's no long wait to upload everything when you've finished. Sites are created from templates and there are a range to choose from, with each design offering a number of layouts and different page types. You get 5GB of storage space, so there's plenty of room to store photos, videos and anything else you fancy hosting on your site.

Performance
The service uses Flash, both for the site-building software and to create your site afterwards. This has its pros and cons.

On the positive side, your site will be dynamic – all the templates have animated effects that will leave your visitors dazzled. On the downside, a Flash-driven site is marginally slower to load (though we didn't notice too much of a difference over broadband), and search engines will find it difficult to understand the content of your site, so it probably won't perform particularly well in Google.

Ease of use
If you're looking to construct a snazzy site, though, this is an extremely easy way to do it. The interface is relatively straightforward, though certain advanced elements may take a bit of getting used to. It's a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment so you know that whatever you do in the design stage will be translated exactly to your website. For people whose design savvy outstrips their web wizardry, this is a massive advantage. It also helps when adding things like video – just upload a video file to your web space (a handy media manager is included in the package) and drag it onto your site. A player is created around the file automatically, saving you from having to host it elsewhere and embed code in your site.

Value for money
Considering how much you can get out of this package for a minimum of effort, it's well worth the money. The downside is that, because this is as much service as software, you'll need to pay a monthly fee after one year. However, for a similar level of service you're looking at just £1.99 per month (about £24 per year), so it's not exactly going to break the bank.

Verdict
It won't suit everyone and those with a little bit of web savvy might still be better off finding a host and building a site from scratch. The Flash technology used in the design and building of a Magix site cuts both its flexibility and its impact on search engines. That said, for personal websites, this probably isn't a big issue and if you're just looking for a simple drag-and-drop way to make a great-looking and sophisticated site, then the Magix Website Maker is certainly up to the job.

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