Moving From Google Page Creator to Google Sites

New Google Sites  I'm aware that not many people are using Google Page Creator to create static pages. After all, people are so used to either Blogger or Wordpress that using Google Page Creator would be like going back to the Stone Age. 

However, I find GPC serves a purpose especially for a Blogger/Blogspot user who needs to create "static pages" for certain things such a Privacy Policy page or an Advertising Guide page like the ones I have on this blog.

There are other peripheral contents related to your site that you might want to place on a static page so they don't get in the way of your regular blog posts. On that score, GPC comes in handy for Blogger/Blogspot users.

Of course, you don't have to follow what I did because you can still publish, for example, your Privacy Policy as a blog post. It's your perogative. For Wordpress users, it's a cinch for them to just open a static page inside Wordpress itself and do the necessary task. How fortunate they are!

I won't say GPC is a work of art - it hasn't got the friendly user interface that's associated with Blogger or Wordpress. In fact, I find GPC a bit of a clunky page creator but, nonetheless, I managed to create my pages.

Now, the news is that Google Page Creator is about to be retired and it will be replaced by something that's called Google Sites. Here's what Google says about this new move:

"We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because we have shifted our focus to developing Google Sites, which offers many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and Google docs.

"If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google Sites later this year. We are committed to making this transition as smooth and easy as possible, and we will post more details as we get closer to the transition time. You can also manually move your web pages from Page Creator to Google Sites or other service providers at any time."

So, that's the lowdown on the new Google Sites. And it's adios to Google Page Creator soon!


Meanwhile, I'll just live with my present GPC pages and wait for the automatic transition to Google Sites sometime later this year.

Wish me all the best!

Google Chrome Unleashed

NEW KID ON THE BLOG  There's a new web browser kid on the block by the name of Chrome. The big news about Chrome is that it has the name Google written all over it. Two years ago Google had denied Chrome's existence but now the cat is out of the bag. Google Chrome is unleashed!

The buzz is that Google has launched its open source web browser on Tuesday as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries. But we just wonder why only this number of countries and why not the whole world? The Macintosh and Linux versions will follow in its wake.

Some questions will be asked:

• Is a browser war looming around the corner?
  
  
• Will Chrome be the "Windows killer" ?
  
  
• What does it mean for Microsoft?
  
  
• Why is Google launching Chrome?
  

Certainly the people at Microsoft and Mozilla will be following this new development in the browser space which is getting competitive. The last web browser to join the pack is Flock and the last one that went out of business was Netscape. By and large, it appears that Big G is aiming squarely at Microsoft's Internet Explorer which released IE8 beta recently.

According to a BBC technology report, Google Chrome is designed to be lightweight and fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

The view from Google is that Chrome is another option to contribute to the betterment of the Web experience. 

"We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," says Google on its official blog. 

According to Google, Tuesday launch "is just the beginning" because "Google Chrome is far from done." The Mountain View folks expect users to provide feedbacks. 

Below is the video Google released to explain the story and engineering behind the launch of Google Chrome:

You can download Google Chrome here. 

I just did and initially I'm quite impressed by the neat and uncluttered look of it. If you poke your nose around, you will discover some really cool features. Don't let the bare appearance deceives you. I've been playing with it since I installed the browser on Wednesday. 

It was sort of love at first byte. I like the minimalist interface. Installing Chrome was a breeze and from the word "go" this beta version takes off in a nifty manner. Just imagine how much better it could be when Google takes it out of beta. 

Guess, I'm gonna get chummy with this new browser kid for a while. I've tried it out and I'm confident it will serve as a reliable and accomodating browser. There's hardly anything to be afraid of.

Obviously, one may discover a few glitches here and there. I'm sure Big G will tackle these problems eventually. But should Microsoft be afraid?

Watch and listen to what this guy Chris Pirillo has to say about Google Chrome on this video: