 |
|
 |
| |
|
|
         |
|
A new lifeAs she herself points out, Aliza Grinberg's two babies arrived almost on the same day. Eden, a bouncing baby girl, entered the world just one day after HiTMeLive, a Web site authoring program which Grinberg co-authored. Eden is thriving on parental love and attention at Aliza's home in suburban Melbourne, Australia. HiTMeLive! must survive under far harsher conditions, fending mostly for itself in the crowded global Web software creche, where new entrants arrive almost hourly and promising young things born six months ago can somehow just slip from view. Grinberg co-authored HiTMeLive with friend and fellow Israeli immigrant Joshua Rosinger, after they "decided to do something related to the Internet" during their computer science course at Melbourne's RMIT University. Struggling for survivalHiTMeLive is an HTML editor. If you know HTML - HyperText Mark-up Language, the code which creates Web sites - you use HiTMeLive to help you write it. Buttons create the simple pieces of code - headings, links, images and the like. More complex tasks, such as tables and frames, bring up "wizards" which generate the code after asking you to fill in key details. On its own, that wouldn't give HiTMeLive much chance. Grinberg and Rosinger chose to create an HTML editor because such tools are "popular, but very simple". That means plenty of other people can create them, too, and many have. Strange to relate, in a huge international market, HiTMeLive's toughest competitor is Hot Dog, created just a few suburbs away by Melbourne-based Sausage Software. Hot Dog and rising stars like Nick Bradbury's Homesite can create code just as fast as HiTMeLive. The Unique Selling PropositionBut HiTMeLive has a chance of surviving through what marketers call its Unique Selling Proposition: you see the results in one window as you create the code in another. In other words, as the program's title suggests, you see your pages "live" as you make them. Many editors require you to view your pages separately; more sophisticated programs, like Homesite, ask you to push a button to update an internal viewer. No-code publishers, such as Microsoft's FrontPage and Claris's HomePage, are designed to show the pages as you build them and keep you away from the code - but if you're determined to create sophisticated pages, that has its disadvantages. HiTMeLive represents an interesting compromise, one which holds attractions for both new users and Web veterans. For new users, HiTMeLive offers the best opportunity yet to see how HTML works. Since you see your errors and successes immediately, you learn fast just what the HTML code can do. Grinberg, who very ambitiously "wanted everyone to be able to use the software", has at least made HTML more accessible to beginners. The HiTMeLive CD includes a useful RMIT HTML tutorial, as well as useful sample images and a copy of Internet Explorer. Not grown up yetUsers seeking more than just the basics can use HiTMeLive to include and view Java programs, Javascript and ActiveX objects. And a tabbed interface allows easy switching between several pages on a site. But experienced users will also find the product's bare-bones interface slows down work. Buttons are hard to distinguish from each other, and tags must be edited by hand once they've been created. the program lacks integrated facilities for creating image maps, viewing graphics directories or validating links. Hot Dog and HomeSite score heavily over the newcomer here - and at $65, with no freeware version, HiTMeLive lacks any great price advantage. Add to all that two troublesome last-minute problems - one requires you to change details of Web site subdirectories, while the other may require you to reinstall the program - and HiTMeLive offers more promise than here-and-now delivery. Getting the software to market has put HiTMeLive in the game, but Grinberg and Rosinger must now upgrade it quickly. Nevertheless, this youngster shows promise.
|
  
|
Greenrose