hey ya'll. this is your friend, Chris, lettin' you in on a secret. if you want your own website, and you don't know how to build it, there are some free hosts out there that have some awesome site builders. what's a site builder, you say? well, one definition of a site builder is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) that allows you to "build" your web site so that you can see what it is going to look like before you publish it. often with these types of services, you'll see a drag and drop interface to add widgets and other tools. for example, if you want to add a text widget, you just drag it from their toolbar to wherever you want it to appear on your web page and voila! there are two of these site builders that i'll be telling you about today that I have found to be very useful.

Weebly is a very robust site builder that allows you to add widgets and other elements to your site with little to no effort. if you want a blog, you add a blog page and you are ready to go. you can select a template, build your site, and even change the template if you don't like the look of it. all of your text and widgets you added will stay, but your template or look of the site will change. and if you do know a little about css and html, you can even add your own or edit the code that's already there. some of the templates contain images that can also be changed as well.

Yola is very similar to Weebly. you have templates and widgets and blogging and the WYSIWYG. from what i have seen from just playing with it for a few minutes, it doesn't look like you can edit the html or css files as you can with Weebly. So, you're stuck with their templates. but, on the other hand, their templates look a little better than most of the ones at weebly, so there's a trade-off. If you are willing to fork over about $40, you can purchase one of their more professional-looking templates. overall, this is a great option for people who want a website, but don't know how to code.

In fact, either one is great for people who don't know how to code. some of the widgets that both services offer are appointment scheduling, google maps, contact forms, online polls, picture galleries, and discussion forums. granted, you are kindof limited with some of the widgets unless you pay extra, but for the most part, you can do a lot.

one thing worth mentioning is that with both of these, if you have your own domain name, you can link that domain name to either service. otherwise, you'll have a web address that is a subdomain of either weebly or yola. and in case you didn't know, you can do the same thing with some of the other free services out there that you may already know about, such as blogger and wordpress.

both services, weebly and yola, are free unless you want to use some of their advanced features. so everyone, go out and build your website!

Found a free remote desktop app a few weeks ago that I thought I would share with my readers. It's called TeamViewer and it is free for non-commercial use, which is always awesome.

So what does it do? Well, let me tell you. TeamViewer is a remote desktop application that allows you do the functions of GoToMyPC without paying a monthly fee. You can share your desktop, allow another user to control it, transfer files, and use it as a VPN.

One of the cool features of this software is that you don't have to install anything ahead of time on the remote PC. I have Logmein Free installed on some family computers and after my pro trial expired, I couldn't create a link for them to use in order to install the necessary software. With TeamView, i send the person a link and they download and install the software. Once it is installed, they give me an ID and password, provided by the software. I enter the data and voila, i am connected to their machine. Each time I connect, it creates a new password making it more secure. Speaking of security, the software also uses 256-bit encryption for the connection so the information that goes across is very safe. If I want to be able to connect to an unattended machine, I can set a permanent password that doesn't change. This is especially handy if I want to use this on a personal computer that I want to access away from home. Or if I want to access my work computer from home.

The only catch with the free version that might affect most people is that you cannot install it on a machine running a server OS. They want you upgrade to the business version for that. I can live with that, though. And you can only install the client-side software 1 time--but you can connect to as many hosts as you want. As long as you only connect from one computer to the host computers, then it is not an issue.

Now, all that being said, I haven't really tested the software. i guess I just like the idea of how it works. I do plan on using it in the future.

http://www.teamviewer.com

i'm a little late, but happy new year in case you haven't heard it from me, yet. so tell me, how do you say "2010"? since we said "nineteen ninety-nine", it only makes since to say "twenty ten", right? it doesn't make since to me when people say "two thousand ten"...that's too many syllables. also, will we say "back in ten i did such and such"? i know that i graduated high school in "ninety-six", so it seems that "ten" is the way to go. something for you to ponder.

what will the new year bring? not sure, but i'm hoping for great things. the 00's were pretty great--graduated college, lived in all three sections of the state of Tennessee, got a great job and best of all, got married. there's no point in dreading the future, so i'm thinking positive.

anyways...i hope '10 is awesome for you.