All about Google Page Creator

By Razib Ahmed, ICT Journalist and Blog writer

www.southasiabiz.com

http://write-translate.blogspot.com

Google has taken the cyber world literary by storm again with its new product called Google Page Creator. Google Page Creator is a very simple but effective tool that will allow virtually everyone to have their own website at free of charge and without having any technical knowledge. You can create your website in your browser without the help of any other software. The initial demand has been so high that Google was forced to stop issuing new accounts.

Signing up
When I tried to sign up in Google Page Creator, due to very high demand Google had stopped providing new accounts. Of course, I felt discouraged because I always like to see Google as the never ending source of information for everyone. Google asked me to submit my email address so that I remain in the queue for Google Page Creator. However, after 5 minutes I again tried and this time I to my sheer delight I got the account but again felt disappointed that Google Page Creator does not support my browser (Opera). So, I entered Google Page Creator with Internet Explorer and this time it opened very well.
Things to note:
* http://pages.google.com is the homepage of Google Page Creator
* A Gmail account is a must if you want to get Page Creator
* Explorer 6.0 or Firefox 1.0, or higher, with JavaScript and cookies enabled- Then you can work with Page Creator.By signing up with Page Creator I got a sub domain from Google (http://ahmedrazib.googlepages.com/) with a capacity of 100 Megabyte. For me it is so interesting to note that for signing up I did not have to fill up any form. Just my Gmail was enough. Even I did not have to spend anytime for selecting a url for my sub domain. I did not have to do any email verification. I am sure this process will attract many users in Net.

Help section of Google Page Creator
Before doing anything, I visited the help section in http://pages.google.com/-/about.html. I spent 10-15 minutes to read the topics and I was totally satisfied to see that the topics were written in very easy and non English. It provided the necessary information about Google Page Creator. Then I visited Google Page Creator Help Center (http://www.google.com/support/pages). It was written in a very easy manner too. The troubleshooting tips are useful too for a new user.

My first page in Google Page Creator
When I saw my home page Google Page Creator I felt like working an Microsoft Word and MS Frontpage. There are places where I should just click and then type something- It is just as easy as that. No download, no support from any other software. Just type some words and hit the publish button- that's it. If you are not satisfied with the Layout then you can change it within a minute. There are 4 kinds of layouts and all you need is to just click on one of them. The same goes for the Look too. If you are not satisfied with the Look of your webpage then there are 41 Looks to select. I liked some of them while the others did not appear to be very impressive to me.

My first Picture Google Page Creator
There is an option for uploading a picture. You can upload by two ways: you can select an image from your PC's hard drive or you can give a url of any picture from Internet. Both of them worked pretty fast.

Adding a page at Google Page Creator
After I finished my home page I wanted to add a new page titled About Me. The process is almost same like working on the first page. After I finished creating the page (http://ahmedrazib.googlepages.com/aboutme) I really felt that Google has been able to overcome the biggest challenge of allowing everyone to have own website at free of charge.

Will my page be found in Google Search
Yes, it will be because Google has informed in its website that within a few hours of my website being created by Google Page Creator it will crawl and add to its search. When something gets indexed in Google, other search engines wont waste time to index it too.

What next for Google Page Creator and Google?
Google Page Creator is surely one of the biggest revolutions in ICT sector in recent times. Google Page Creator is a giant step in overcoming the problem of ordinary users to make an online presence without any technical know how. By it Google entered into the web hosting industry and the best thing with Google Page Creator is that any website created here is supposed to be blessed with unlimited amount of bandwidth.

Difference between Blogspot and Google Page Creator
Google's Blogspot is very popular among everyone and there are thousands of blogs hosted in Blogspot. In Blogspot, a person needs some basic ideas about webpage design and HTML but in Google Page Creator anyone with the ability to browse Internet through Internet Explorer and Firefox will be able to create their own website.

No ads in Google Page Creator
I am not sure about it yet but I did not see any ads of any company including Google after uploading my website. If this continues, then Google will dominate the market of free websites. I have seen many of my students and friends to get annoyed from Tripod and Geocities about advertisements and gradually losing interest about free web hosting altogether.

Computer Science past, present and future

by the contributors of Nari Jibon

Based on the opinion of teachers teaching at different universities and students studying at various universities in Computer Science, to what extent the anticipation of the people of our country regarding this field depends is described below: 

Though 19 Public universities and 54 private universities were established, it was not since 1992, Computer Science related subjects were started to be taught. After passing the private university act in 1992, North South University was first introduced as a private university. Since its beginning, this university started teaching on this subject. At the same time, Dhaka University also came up with this subject.

After introducing Computer Science, Dhaka University gives admission to a small number of students in this subject in order to maintain the quality of education. And from the beginning, they have been providing a quality education and till now they could be able to continue that quality. Asked the reason of decreasing interest of the student to this field, Mr. Haider Ali, chairman of that department, says, “Actually it would be wrong saying that interest is lower because our university has been providing a quality education and that is why, our students are in good position in different places. Out main problem is that our students lack in practical application. The main reason is that in our country we do not have any hardware institution. And there are not too many opportunities of employments in the software companies available here. In one sense, studying computer seems not enough due to the segmentation or division of this subject into some other subjects.”

Indicating the mobile communication technology, he said that though it is a part of Computer science, different universities are considering this course as an individual subject due to having a huge market demand at present.

Shoily Hamid, teacher of Stamford University, said that the reason behind having a few students in this field is because of lacking practical studies in this subject. She hopes, however, that the situation will be developed rapidly in our country.

After talking to some of the teachers of different universities, we have got the idea that there is good potential of computer science in future in this country. They viewed that out neighboring country, India has got good success through outsourcing. So, we should try for it too.