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Google Sites

Google Sites is a wiki-like system for collaboratively creating web sites. Google stores the pages for you on their servers, and the software is extremely easy to use. The page you are looking at was created with Google Sites.

Here's the support page for getting started: http://sites.google.com/support/ .

Need a Google Account? Go here: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount

Here's a short introductory video


Google Sites Introduction



Advanced Functionality with Google Sites

Working with others

Select Site Settings from the top-right menu, then select sharing. You can invite people to join you as owners/collaborators of the site.

Embed YouTube video.

1. Go to the YouTube clip you want to embed. Select the URL in the browser bar and copy it.
2. Back on your Google Sites page, select Insert | Video | YouTube Video. Paste the URL as the YouTube URL and provide a title for the clip.
3. Save your Google Sites page and check it out.

Embed your Calendar

1. Go to your Google Calendar and choose Settings. Under Calendar Details, near the bottom, is the Calendar Address. Click the HTML button and copy the URL (address) shown.
2. Back on your Google Sites Page, select Insert | Calendar. Paste the URL in.

Image Links

There doesn't seem to be a way to make an image link somewhere with the Google Sites editor. Here, you'll need to drop into the HTML editor provided (the button to the far right in the Sites toolbar). You can make an image link to another page by placing the image tag itself as the value within an anchor tag:

<a href="pageToLinkTo"><img src="picToShow"/></a>

Note that the src of the image needs to be uploaded to the server where the HTML resides. And the "pageToLinkTo" is often an html file. Here's an example:

     <a href="http://cs.usfca.edu"><img src="client_server.png"/></a>

Image Link Tutorial


Gadget

Google gadgets are tools that you can add to your site to do interesting things. These gadgets are created by programmers and added to the Google Gadget world. Fortunately, you don't have to program them, you can just use them. Try Insert | Gadget and see what exists.

Embed a blog

One gadget you can select is an RSS feed. Select Insert | Gadget and more, then enter 'RSS' in the search. You will find a number of RSS reader tools to choose from. Choose one such as "Simple RSS" and then enter the URL for a feed for your blog or some blog you're interested in. Typically you can find the URL of a feed of a blog by clicking on the blog icon in the address bar.

Creating a logo for your site

1. Create an image of about 800x200 size. You can use Fireworks on  lab computers at USF, or other tool you have (e.g. Photoshop)
2. Select Site Settings  from top menu, then the Appearance tab.
3. Choose Site Elements and then the 'change logo' link.
4. Upload your image.