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CostEffective IT: Nvu
Cost-Effective
IT: Nvu,
by
Richard Sonnier
Houston
Business Show "Advisor" Richard Sonnier, of the Information
Technology Services firm Nimble Services, Inc., provides weekly
information on our show about business technology issues. He can be
reached at 281-445-4800 x250 or rsonnier@nimbleservices.com.
This week I will discuss the Nvu, a free alternative to Microsoft's
FrontPage.
History
For the last few articles, I have been discussing the rebirth of the
Netscape browser and suite by the Mozilla Foundation. I have reviewed
the Mozilla browser FireFox and the email client ThunderBird. One of
the interesting things about Mozilla is that it is open software. Other
companies can take the software and use it to make innovative products.
One former Netscape developer, Daniel Glazman, has formed a company,
Disruptive Innovations, to do just that. The product is called Nvu and
aims to
be "a complete Web
Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as
Microsoft Windows users to rival
programs like FrontPage
and Dreamweaver."
Nvu
I find Nvu very easy to use and for the average user it seems a better
choice than FrontPage. Since the development of Nvu is being paid by Linspire,
a Linux vendor, it will likely have a big future on Linux. I expect Nvu
to become the default website creation tool on Linux. It works equally
well on Windows. In fact, I write my HoustonBusiness.com articles in
Nvu. Currently, Nvu is at release 0.50 but already has an impressive
set of features. See the Nvu
website for details.
The
key point is that Nvu is another quality, free product that can provide
great value to your business. Microsoft FrontPage 2003 retails for $179
so you save that initial cost. Moreover, FrontPage is complex and time
consuming to learn and use. For a full time web developer at a large
corporation, the added complexity might be useful; but for 80% of
businesses it is just a waste of time and
can be very frustrating. Therefore, Nvu's cost saving is really its
simplicity.
Recommendation
I recommend your try Nvu if you need to create or maintain a website or
other HTML content. It is in the early stages of the development and
should get better and better over the next year.
Next week, I will discuss the network storage.
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