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[Oliver]

Hi folk,

I'm looking for advice about free web hosting, particularly for any good experiences people may have had.

I'm writing a web page providing tech support for upgrading the OS ROM's and samples for a drum machine. basically, I upgraded my friend's drum machine as a birthday gift, and found there to be quite limited information about how it could be done, particularly without using expensive professional equipment. I decided to provide a web page to fill the gap.

The page will include some photos, and some screen grabs, but I don't expect it to be more than a few MB at most. I'm writing it using CSS and html, with no scripting, or exotic content. There is no audio content, though there may be a couple of midi sysex files, as well as the .hex or .bin ROM files (the drum machine's designer has told me this would be OK, but he will review my page before it goes online).

I don't mind if there are ads on the page, though I doubt the content would get many hits at all. As I've never done this sort of thing before, I would really appreciate any advice.

Cheers folk,

Oliver

[cecilia]

if you have gmail I think you can have some space for a web site

[Oliver]

Hi Cecilia,

I noticed their free hosting last night.

It seems like a pretty reasonable service, but I think they only allow pre-configured templates. I'm not too sure about that, though.

I've already been working on my own layout, and colour scheme, etc. so wasn't too keen on just using a template.

As it's my first web page, I wanted to do it 'hands on', at least to some extent. I may as well check it out though.

Cheers,

Oliver

[Oliver]

OK, been doing a bit more reading, and it seems one can actually use a custom CSS.

It's a bit of a hack, but one can use a small javascript to reference one's own CSS, which then overides the default Google Page Creator styles.

Hopefully, it won't require too much mucking around to get it working correctly. It seems there may be some further issues to have it function as desired for various browsers.

[Oliver]

For anyone else who may be interested:

There is a simlpe way to side step the Google Page Creator (GPC) templates.

One can write a page with html and CSS as desired, in one's editor of choice, and upload it to a GPC account.

Then create a GPC homepage, using any of the available templates.

Insert javascript into the subtitle section of the GPC homepage, to redirect a browser to the file which was previously uploaded to the GPC account. I also gave the homepage a title, and a manual redirect link.

This allows one access to the free hosting, and to design one's page as desired.

Hope this helps someone else.

[McVenco]

Insert javascript into the subtitle section of the GPC homepage, to redirect a browser to the file which was previously uploaded to the GPC account.

Sounds cool. I'm thinking of making my own website again - I had one for years, but 3 years ago I deleted it and didn't bother to make a new one - but I'm a bit rusty on my html..

What javascript code needs to be inserted to redirect it to, say, a page called index2.html?

[Oliver]

McVenco wrote:
...What javascript code needs to be inserted to redirect it to, say, a page called index2.html?

I got the information from the GPC Google Discussion Group.

The code is as follows:
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
window.location="http://your-site-name.googlepages.com/page";
</script>
where 'your-site-name' may be 'McVenco', and 'page' would be 'index2.html'.

The page I'm making uses 'index.html', by the way; there is no need to add a digit.

I should mention that there are other ways of getting around the GPC templates. Some people are using another javascript to reference a CSS which overrides the template layout. I found that to be more hassle to deal with, as I had already constructed my page in an editor.

You can find all the information in the discussion group, but not all of it is very clear.

There is also a tutorial about GPC here, which describes a couple of techniques used.

Cheers,

Oli