On his web site, Seth Dillingham, (I think I got the URL right that time), had some nice things to say about this site. Which is pretty cool since there would not be much here without the software he wrote, Conversant, which powers this site. You can get a free web site that uses the same software this site does at Free-Conversant.Com which is a good way to test the system out to see if it is right for you.
I could go on for pages and pages about the numerous features that make this the best web composition/management software out there, but there are two that really stand out.
First, whereas before switching to Conversant I would use maybe 5 or 6 separate applications each day to do various tasks with my sites, today I do 95 percent of the tasks with my web browser and trusty TextPad. For example, something that used to be a real pain was managing all of my bookmarks. I’m use the web heavily and on a given day spend 4 to 5 hours just surfing, visiting upwards of 100 to 120 sites. For a site like LibertySearch.Com, I have a list of 25 to 30 sites I visit every morning to look for new articles.
Keeping track of those used to be a pain. I used to have separate applications manage the bookmarks, tried some of the online bookmarking services, etc. Now, though, when I visit that site and log-in I see a list of all of the sites I want to visit on the left hand side of the page. Changing, adding, or deleting the bookmarks can be done with two clicks of the mouse button. A relatively small feature, but one that really made my life a lot easier — it is very helpful to be able to integrate the background material I need to manage the site on the site itself.
Even better, the software not only is customizable, but it is easy to customize. I used to use Macromedia’s Dreamweaver for day to day editing and updating of my site. Dreamweaver is customizable, but in my experience I could never get such features to work. The macro features of most programs just hate me.
One of the things I always wanted to do, but never had the time, was use more internal links within my web site. For example, on Overpopulation.Com if I write an article on a new treatment for malaria, I want to have the first time the world malaria appears to be a link to the main page about malaria on that site. Without having to remember to highlight the word and then have to remember what I called the malaria page.
With Conversant, all I do is visit a page in my web browser in the administrative area of the web site, and select the page called “Resources.” (Conversant calls what I’m about to explain, a Resource). Click on “Add a Resource” and there is a form asking me for the name of the Resource, the URL I want it to resolve to and any alternative title text. So I type in that I want the resource to be called “Malaria” that I want it to go to “http://www.overpopulation.com/malaria.html”, and hit submit.
From now on, anytime I write about malaria, all I have to do is surround the word with pipes (the “|” character) and the software insert the link automatically. So all I could have to do is write something, like, “|Malaria| is responsible for millions of deaths each year” and Conversant handles the task of inserting the link so when people bring up the page in their browser it looks like Malaria is responsible for millions of deaths each year.
These two features — bookmarks in pages and resources — save me a lot of time and make it possible to start adding features to my site that I had not done before because of the cost in time and that’s just scratching the surface. There is a feature to automatically make site maps of an entire site or just part of a site, the web log feature which makes it simple to update a page like this several times a day, etc. (I am working on a more detailed look at the various parts of the software and how I use it to do some interesting things — hopefully that will be ready next week.)
All that, and the software is affordable. I am running on a dedicated server that I recently had the folks at Macrobyte upgrade for speed (700mhz Athlon, 256 mb, 20 gig hard drive), and the monthly fee is comparable to what you would pay to lease a similar server configuration at some place like Rackspace without the web site management software.