Apr 3, 2007
MS Office Live - Microsoft's attempt at a "professional" web development package. After looking at the HTML code of the example sites they showcase, I take offense to the self proclaimed professional label.Here are the top 0 reasons why you should love MS Office Live...
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4 Comments
You would think that with all the knowledge someone like Microsoft has they would do a better job then this. And If my Site looked anything like this Cookie Cutter Waste of Time, I would scrap it and start over.
Check out my web site - took about 20hours. I have no previous web design experience, but I (and several of my friends) think its pretty good for a basic site. I really don't care what code is produced - not remotely interested as long as the site looks good and works! I say well done MS - and for free - tell me who and what is better (and cheaper) please!!!!
Hi Chris,
I agree, your website is a pretty good effort for only 20 hours work and no previous web experience. For it's purpose, it's fine.
But it's not what you would call "professional" level, which is what Microsoft is promoting the system as. There are a number of issues with the site that wouldn't be present in a better package - such as the incorrectly resized images and the lack of SEO.
If Microsoft had billed this as "A quick and easy website making tool" I would have no problem at all.
If I had to suggest something that is free, easy to install, and good, I would probably recommend Wordpress (www.wordpress.org). A number of web hosts have one-click installs of Wordpress, and you can customize it quickly using one of thousands of plugins/themes available free.
It will get you a modern website that looks good, works well, and costs nothing.
Normally I would recommend my own product, Jojo CMS, which is also free, but is aimed more at web developers than the DIY market (read, not as easy to install).
I don't mean to Microsoft bash, not really.
But say for example you were to pay a professional web developer to make you a professional website.
Say they did the job, and produced code that looked like this...
<DIV class="msh-webpartFrame">
<table width="100%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0">
<tr>
<td id="MSOZoneCell_WebPartWPQ4" vAlign="top"><table TOPLEVEL border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td valign="top"><div WebPartID="9a1e0a4d-d7e9-4a7e-8f1f-078c833ab916" HasPers="false" id="WebPartWPQ4" width="100%" class="ms-WPBody" allowDelete="false" style="" ><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="100%"><tr><td>
<DIV> <H2 style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT color=#000000><FONT face="'Times New Roman', Times, serif"><FONT face="'Times New Roman', Times, serif" color=#000000 size=5>SOme actual text content</FONT></FONT></FONT></H2>
Can you honestly say you would be satisfied that you had a professional grade website? Or even an acceptable grade site?
Really, there is no excuse for this kind of code, especially not in 2007 and especially not from the world's largest software maker.