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I feel I’ve run the gauntlet of web site development software. · I started off with good old Microsoft FrontPage. If it’s Microsoft, it’s got to be good, right? Maybe it was just the first, but I liked it. The menu system was a bit tedious, and you had to load “FrontPage extensions’ on the server, but overall it was pretty good. I used it for the musician and pub web pages I was running at the time. I actually taught a FrontPage class at William Woods University. · Somewhere along the line, I “acquired” a copy of Adobe Dreamweaver. I never did give Dreamweaver a fair shake; it was obvious that it would take days and days to learn it, and at the time, I just didn’t have it in me. I suppose everyone likes to think they are a good graphic designer, but really I’m an engineer, I just don’t need web site design software that is this powerful. · Then Microsoft replaced FrontPage with Expression Web. It was touted as a new and better FrontPage, but I resisted. Also, it cost real money; for a while FrontPage was packaged as part of Office. Then I ran into a Fry’s out in Sacramento. What a dream store for an electrical engineer. I had to buy something, so I went ahead and bought Expression Web. Just like FrontPage only better? I don’t think so. Again, I just wasn’t willing to put in the time to learn it. I guess it would have helped if I had to teach a class about it. I hear it’s been discontinued too. (Microsoft did that to FORTRAN too, and I’m still a little irritated, but Intel is doing a good job) · Tried EXGenerator4. It wasn’t overly difficult to learn and produced a fine web site. However, when I came back later to try to update the web site, it was like relearning it all over. It was quirky and not intuitive. Oh, and it’s discontinued too. Web site development software sure doesn’t last long. · Hey, I’m real good at Microsoft Word. I generate reams of word documents in my day job. Microsoft Word can save files as HTML, why not just use Word? Proof of concept worked fine. Then the limitations started to show up. There is more to a web site than just static Html files. · Somewhere along the line, I tried Xara Web Designer. The program was OK, still a fair learning curve. I just wasn’t impressed with the ease of use and the capabilities. I never felt I learned enough to really be productive. · OK, bite the bullet, everyone uses Wordpress now, right? Statistics say 25% of all web sites use Wordpress. There must be something to it. Hmm, kind of hard to install, but with my host, PowWeb’s help, got it done. Difficult to work with, I need a manual (good old paper). Bought WordPress; The missing manual, which is pretty good. · Adobe Muse, where’d that come from, Muse and Dreamwever both? Why not try it, not overly expensive and I already subscribe to Photoshop and Lightroom. Muse was a little difficult to learn, but produced nice websites, with lots of bling. The one down side was the method of setting up a photo gallery; had to type the filename for each (of the many many) photos. I can live with it. Oh, NO! not again, Adobe up and discontinued Muse. I thought a bog company like Adobe wouldn’t do that, but anyway. · I decided my time would be better spent, reallying learning one of the programs, rather than try to find the ‘perfect’ software. So I got Xara Web Designer again. The software was a little more polished, and relearning it not going too bad. Stay tuned.