Now before I go into what they are doing wrong, I want to talk about what they do right. First off I love that there is no way to download the CMS and use it on another server. Why? Because they take care of all the software patches and security updates behind the scenes. Stuff just works. I want to focus on content, not some security patch. They also respond very quickly to Twitter questions and their support tickets. The site looks very modern with very little work. Posting updates is at least as easy as it is on Word Press. In many cases it is even easier because no one has to worry if they installed something wrong. I have to use a hack to get images to work on this site. Never could figure out what setting is wrong, but the internal image upload has never worked. It’s part of the reason I wanted Squarespace to work. This Word Press isn’t working as well as I would like. I wanted to replace it. I wanted Squarespace to be that replacement.

Squarespace

Now For The Negative
So here I am trying out Squarespace. I am trying to figure out their really horrid interface so I can explain it to my client. So far it is driving me nuts! It is nowhere near intuitive. I feel like I need to take a week of classes to figure out what the heck they mean on these tutorials. No wonder this place is only being used by the hardest core geeks. You have to be a super nerd to even fight through this freakin mess! Unless Squarespace improves quickly I predict they will go under in a few years. This is as intuitive as brain surgery!

Not Intuitive at all!
There is a spot where it said to edit site name. I clicked on the link and it just kept refreshing the page. Why would it do that? Why not send me to the page where I can edit the site name instead? Why else would someone click on that? Just an idea SquareSpace folks. Make it work like people would guess it would work. Now I figured out how to get this to work eventually, but that is my problem with Squarespace. It is not at all intuitive. There is a major learning curve to their system. Most will get frustrated before they get that far and just keep putting up with Word Press.

Video Tutorials Good. No Full Screen bad!
So I go to watch the video tutorial they have available. I love video tutorials and find them to be the best method of showing people something like this. So they earn points for having those available. Problem is they don’t let me watch it full screen! I have a feeling they are using Vimeo to host their video. I use Vimeo as well so I know Vimeo has a square button to the bottom right that let’s me watch the video in full screen mode. For some reason SquareSpace has that blocked. Why would they do that? I tried watching the video. It looks like I could learn a ton from it if I could see what is going on better. Without going fullscreen things were too small and I found it only left me more frustrated.

Support Ticket?
Although they do respond very quickly to the support tickets, they sometimes fall into the tech support trap of coming off like a bot. . On my first question I thought it was a bot! Either that or their support is outsourced to India and the person was just giving me what the book told him was the standard answer. It was almost as if my question was ignored. A very quick phone call could have solved this. They don’t have phone support.

What Could Save Squarespace
Phone support. Plain and simple. Their CMS is great once you get the hang of it, but most will get frustrated with the learning curve and go back to putting up with the evil they are used to (Word Press). Charge $60 a week for phone support. I would pay that without hesitation. I understand good phone support is expensive for a start up like theirs, so charge extra. The customers that are serious will pay it.

Serious Design Still Goes To The Pros
Just as with Word Press, if you are really serious about your site you will want to hire a pro designer. Just like with Word Press you can get a site that looks ok without one. In fact, as far as design goes it is pretty much even. That is why Support is where Squarespace can beat them. If only they had phone support.

Please take my money Squarespace…I beg you! Let me pay for phone support!

So what is Open Source? Well, it means that the code to write the program is not encrypted. So if you know how to program, you can make changes. This also means that is is free because how do you release encrypted code and then try to charge for it? These companies make their money from support. Kind of like a drug dealer gives you a free sample to get you hooked and then charges every time after. The thing is that most of the time the support is way better than the mainstream companies. So give free a try with these items below. You will not be sorry.

1. Ubuntu:
I had a co-worker that was lucky if she could turn her computer on. I gave her an Ubuntu disc when she said her granddaughter kept putting viruses on her computer. She used the disc to install Ubuntu herself and has loved it ever since. Yes, Linux is now user friendly! Shocking to some I know. I was shocked at how much I ended up loving it too.

2. Gimp:
You paid how much for Photoshop? You are such a fool! I think Gimp is more user friendly than Photoshop. With less features it has much less of a learning curve.

3. Open Office:
The only thing that keeps me using MS Office every once in awhile is the “Title Case” format feature. If Open Office ever lets me select a block of text and change it to title case I would forever forget MS Office ever existed. Like Gimp, in many ways I like it better.

4. Mozilla Thunderbird
You still use Outlook? Well, since I use Ubuntu as the operating system on my main machine I have to use an open source email program. I have tried many and Thunderbird is the easiest to use.

5. Audacity
Very simple audio editing program. Well, it started out really simple at least. They have been adding more and more features with every update and I kind of wish they would stop. What I always liked about this program was how simple it was. It’s still pretty awesome though and you should try it.

6. Mozilla Firefox
My browser of choice. I have Opera on my desktop machine along with Firefox, but I almost never use it. I have Internet Explorer on my laptop because it has the Vista OS, but I only use it for Netflix streaming. For both machines I can’t help but use Firefox. Google’s Chrome has had a bit of buzz, but I don’t think it has what Firefox does.

7. Azureus
This is for downloading stuff using bittorrent. Like anything Nine Inch Nails releases (from the point they left the label) for example. I know of several video podcasts that release their material this way as well. Oh yeah, and there are some who do illegal stuff this way as well. But you shouldn’t because that would be wrong.

8. FileZilla
I know I am getting a little geeky here on some of you, but this is for something called FTP. That stands for . File Transfer Protocol. Basically it is for transferring files. Most of the time this is transferring files back and fourth on a server, but many use it to transfer files to each other as well. Anyways, it is the most simple one out there that I have been able to find.

9. phpBB
Ok, so most of my readers may not ever need this. I try to keep things simple so tech isn’t so scary and I will continue with that. However, if you ever need to run an old school style web forum, this is a great free open source option. I used it for many years on one of my sites until I grew to the point where I needed a pay solution.

10. Word Press
Now there are many better content management systems out there. We can debate which one is better until we are blue in the face, but this is about what is the most user friendly. Word Press is for the newbie that wants to run a website or blog and isn’t the most tech savvy person around. I use it for this site, my wife uses it for QueenOfCheese.com and our pets use it for their website CatsAreSoGay.com. That is how easy this thing is!

There you have it. My top ten most user friendly open source programs. Now I know a couple of them are slightly advanced, but I figure once you learn the basics you might get interested in running your own site. So I threw in a few that would help with that. If you have one I forget please mention it in the comments.

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