back to article Need the loo AND need to build a website? There's an app for that

Geocities saviour Jimdo has launched an iOS app, allowing instant fanboi-friendly website creation for those moments when inspiration strikes and a Facebook post just isn't enough. Want to set up a new website, but can't be bothered to boot up a computer – let alone learn HTML? Jimdo will fix that with a WYSIWYG iOS app which …

COMMENTS

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  1. nichomach
    Joke

    Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease let the default font be multicoloured flashing Comic Sans...

    1. Fibbles

      And I'd almost forgotten how eye-bleedingly bad a lot of the web used to look...

      Oh god, now I'm having <blink>flashbacks</blink>.

    2. Useless User

      But can we have rainbow coloured swirling text following the mouse pointer then?

    3. kain preacher

      make it blink at 75HRz and have it flash from bright yellow to bright green to light pink,Strobe effect. And make it move like figure eight. At the same time have it blasting loud techno. Random sirens and whistles blowing. All at 120 Db

  2. Tiny Iota
    Stop

    Dedicated web presence

    "In these days of social media it seems slightly archaic for small organisations to have a dedicated web presence at all"

    If a company tries to get me to visit their Facebook page rather than their own website, they don't get a visit from me!

    Regards,

    A grumpy not-that-old-yet man!

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Dedicated web presence

      If they could have a URL which simply redirects to their FB page, this would probably be slightly better IMO. I don't want to have to "find you on FB".

      1. Tom Wood

        While we're grumbling....

        What's with the adverts that say "search online for xyz"

        1. surely they're asking for a googlebombing

        and

        2. isn't that what URLs were invented for?

        1. JDX Gold badge

          Re: While we're grumbling....

          I guess they figure the search term is more memorable than a URL. In many cases they're probably right.

      2. Mike Flugennock

        Re: Dedicated web presence

        "If they could have a URL which simply redirects to their FB page, this would probably be slightly better IMO..."

        ...except that you still end up on Facebook.

      3. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Re: Dedicated web presence

        The problem (for them certainly) is when you then get "you have to log in to Facebook" in order to see the page. At which point they have just lost a customer...

    2. Mike Flugennock
      Thumb Up

      Re: Dedicated web presence

      "In these days of social media it seems slightly archaic for small organisations to have a dedicated web presence at all"

      Archaic but sensible. I keep my work on my own Web site, under a domain name which I own, on hosting space which I manage to scrap the cash to pay for, and which people can reach easily without fighting their way through Zuckerberg's bullshit -- and I friggin' like it that way.

      Just because everybody's doing it, that doesn't make it a smart move. As my Mom was fond of asking me, "if Billy and Kevin jumped off a cliff, would you do it?"

      "If a company tries to get me to visit their Facebook page rather than their own website, they don't get a visit from me!"

      Big ups to you, man. Y'know what even bugs the hell out of me more is when they want you to go to their friggin' Farcebook page and "like" them, usually as a precondition of their viewing and considering your resume, or some shit.

  3. JDX Gold badge

    Fine but...

    I don't object to template based sites, they are in fact far preferable to the kind of crud many small businesses use.

    But what's wrong with just using WordPress? It lets you use templates and will also work from iOS since you can do everything from the browser.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fine but...

      Because they install it once, never update it, and then throw their toys out the pram when it inevitably gets hacked...

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Fine but...

        You don't have to install WP any more than you have to install this thing... many companies offer hosted WP and will do everything for you.

        What makes you think this setup is any less open to hacking?

        1. Fibbles

          Re: Fine but...

          Hosted WP services tend not to be free. Besides, what's wrong with a little competition?

    2. Vector

      Re: Fine but...

      "But what's wrong with just using WordPress? It lets you use templates and will also work from iOS since you can do everything from the browser."

      Why, not a thing at all. But why should WordPress be the only way to do that?

    3. Daniel B.
      Alert

      Re: Fine but...

      WordPress being the hackalicious CMS that it is, I would shy away from it. Especially as most "sites" done in it look more like blogs than actual sites, which also detracts from the professionalism involved into making said site.

      Interestingly, someone I know actually built a Jimdo site, and it looks pretty nice for a cheap site thingy. Definitely more professional than the standard Geocities site.

  4. PCPuss

    Templates

    Templates? Free? My hand-coded website costs less than £80 per year including my domain name, which is less than the price of a half pint of beer a week. And try using PHP and MySQL with them! I used Dreamweaver a few years ago. Bad move. Ever tried to debug Dreamweaver generated code? And as for antisocial fb & Twitter? Rant over!!!

    1. M Gale

      Re: Templates

      I guess this'll do for "I want a website".

      If you want to start dragging in Three.js, JQuery plus plugins and a whole bunch of other stuff, I guess handcrafting it will still be the way to go.

      (By the way, Three.js is bloody awesome.)

  5. James Howat

    Surely "virtual real estate" is just "estate"?

  6. Gazman
    Thumb Up

    Facebook? What Facebook? The website advantage

    For the small but growing number of us that do not use Facebook or have a Facebook account, a website (no matter how humble) is a nice gesture.

    Indeed, websites may come back into their own again - the mean average age of Facebook users is now well over forty and rising. Why? Because the younger teens just don't want to know: see comments on the uncoolness of Facebook at http://mashable.com/2013/08/11/teens-facebook/.

  7. Ross K Silver badge

    Time Is Precious

    Everybody knows you spend time in the crapper to avoid doing work, not to make frigging websites.

    My apps of choice while on the throne at work are Fark, Super Stickman Golf and the occasional bit of Skype

    1. Hud Dunlap
      Joke

      Re: Time Is Precious

      So do you turn the sound off so the guy in the next stall can't tell your co-workers what you were really doing?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Big Brother

        Re: Time Is Precious

        If you're shy, you turn the sound *on* so the guy in the next stall can't tell what you're doing...

    2. Daniel B.
      Coat

      Re: Time Is Precious

      Oh man, now I've been reminded of that one time where Angry Birds could be heard from one of the stalls at a certain corporate building.

      Angry Turds, maybe?

  8. Anteaus

    Teach a man to fish..

    Learning basic HTML skills ain't that hard, and once you understand the way it works it's much easier to handcode and get a predictable result, than to try to get past all the weird formatting quirks in online editors.

    Or, you could use a 'Web builder' which supposedly makes this process simple, but actually takes longer to learn your way around than HTML, and is far more restrictive.

    Or you could take the CMS approach of uploading 100MB of vulnerability-riddled php and SQL code, just to display a one kilobyte page.

    Then, have to update to an new CMS version because of critical vulns in the old one, and (big surprise) find that the updated CMS is incompatible with content from the previous one, so it's start again from scratch time. Six months later, repeat process. Ad nauseam.

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