I have issues with the current websites out there it seems. While I'm in no way fluent in HTML, apparently I can't be given even the option of looking into that or working through my own if registering to free website domain services. All I get are the same templates with all the unnecessarily width-eating sidebars you get on blogging sites as well.
There are reasons why I considered some of the sites mentioned below, by the way, so nothing is set in stone or me being entirely ignorant of some past failings. I detested Angelfire's pop-ups years ago already, for example, but had a reason to look into it now.
My HTML skills stem back to 1995, so I know they are outdated. The last time I fiddled about with any of that was around 2003, so that's seven years in the past as well. I do however know enough to be able to look at the existing code on sites where I want to pick a piece from here, another bit from there, and to combine them into something that hopefully works. Basic, cleaner, simple, and no sidebar frills beyond a basic navigational menu.
I however seem to fall in between categories as a user, since I am unwilling to pay for services when I don't know the quality of them and what is available to me as a user before signing up and trying them out. As a free one, you no longer get access even to something like Angelfire's web shell management system. Or so I found out today when writing this, on Monday.
I haven't looked into CSS thus far despite having moved on sites that use it for some of their content. Apparently I now need to if want more control over what my content will look like. Even if it's simply to slash additional and unnecessary things from whatever I have to initially choose to use. Depending on what Topcities.com currently offers for their free users, I may still be able to modify things to pure basics even without CSS. I don't know, since I ran out of time to look into it.
With only an hour or two per day to shift through any of that, I'm at a disadvantage to even have any time to sort it out. I just dislike the current need for everything to look the same. The templates don't vary in what they offer greatly enough and none offer me anything close enough to the basic clean style I'd have in mind.
I realize that "mundanes" these days may like their content out there as well, with easy to use options, but when the main thing that is on offer when you first register is only catering to the lowest common denominator, I feel excluded and less pleased with the service I am offered.
If someone seriously wants to start their own social networking site they should presumably have enough knowledge about the technical issues and questions to know how to do it, too. Today I found out that's not at all necessary and that there are templates to do that as well.
Seriously? You're offering that to people who can't do a thing technically? Why? I cannot quite fathom the logic of letting people who have no idea what they're doing simply run around running something for the sake of it, because whee, it's fun. It must make someone some money somewhere or it wouldn't be an option, but it still seems bizarre.
I also have issues with limiting widths of text to 500 pixels or whatever as with the blogging templates. It narrows things unnecessarily and makes the text look longer than it actually is. I also find it more difficult to read through than wider options. If and when I ever get the time, the options for the blog will get modified as well, it's just to find the time.
I am likewise not entirely pleased with Zymic.com not offering a chance to register using Yahoo accounts, since I want to focus all my activities with this around what I have now. I distrust some of the few other accounts I'd have in use to not go bust entirely if I fail to register in for a month, or more so, for the year it takes to re-allow old account names into use on some other services heard about.
Looking through a "Using the Media Manager for File Downloads" run-through help page I also start missing the times when I could just type in the html and URL for where I want to pick something up from once it's in the folder I want it in. All the jumping between menus and things just to get something to show up? I'd forgotten how time consuming the different menus were in the old days as well, let alone now that they've added several layers on top of it.
I don't want your Rich Text editors or other nonsense to edit in links. I know how. You're confusing people by making it look more complicated than it is and keeping others from doing it more simply or by hand. Inept as I may be with it all, I can tell I'd prefer more basics. I'm having to learn a more graphics based way to do mere links it seems, if at all want my very modest pages anywhere. I learned how to read things without pictures next to them early on in school. Why should I want them in what I do online?
The same goes to sites first offering me twelve or more boxes of text or images to view when I enter. I don't have ADD. I don't need everything thrown at me to try and wow me with all your fanciness when I first enter. You can grab me more easily by having what I need there, easily found and navigable without extra fuss on top.
The templates also finally tell me why these days I can never any more tell if a site I'm taken to is something more legitimate or simply a blog. If everything including blogs looks the same, it takes away from your air of legitimacy or professional tone. Should such things be what you're after, instead of a clean and simple look like me here. No, I don't think I'm entirely pleased here.
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