Google Sites and G Suite Productivity Tools Work for Me

Wow! What Google has given me for six dollars a month is rather amazing. It's almost too good to be true, so I hope they don't start deleting services or hiking up the price. And, yes, there is a learning curve, especially for fearful geeks like myself. But wow... what I've been able to do, so far, and the glimpses of what I probably can do, with a bit more learning, just amazes me. So far, I've built my site in a WYSIWYG editor, changed the size of text boxes and linked them, pulled up and used files from my Google Drive, added a Google slide show using photos in my Google Photos (can't customize the look of the slideshow much, but that's a-comin', probably), set privacy, added users (if I wanted to pay for more users), embedded pages in my site, published or unpublished my site at the drop of a hat, pointed my custom domain at my site and had it propagate so fast it made my head spin (and with phone support to talk me through the process, too). I went to my personal blogs and added my business self as a second admin (optional), so I could edit no matter whether I was logged into my "business" or personal account. I will be able to add calendars and things if I like. I haven't figured out all the customization tools yet, and I'm still a little lost in the Admin Console, but this is pretty much the smoothest site migration and easiest new-site build I've ever encountered. They've worked hard to make everything workable for hobbyists, yet, I think pros can still find all the horrid tech-y stuff in there, if they need it. Well, I won't say that navigating the Google Admin Console is easy, though they really have tried to make it so. I think the problem is me. But I will learn.

Loving G Suite...

Well, I have to say, this old dinosaur from the stone age (aka, "Southern Muse") is loving G Suite. Oh, how I wish it had been around twenty years ago! After pointing my domain name at my site (built with G Suite tools, using New Google Sites), I was able to set up my "business" (hobby?) entity, Southern Muse, so that everything looks as I want it to look (almost; I did have to use their site template, with a big banner and title at the top). But... I really like the way the site looks. I have my display name set to "Southern Muse" which works just fine. I have various aliases set up for my one user (the user, myself, whose account costs $5 per month, going on $6 now). My aliases do what I want them to do: one email alias that I use when calling support or handling the "business" details of my site; one for replying to comments on my "business" blog and one for replying to comments on my "personal" blogs; another one for replying to anyone who should happen to view my website and like my art and want to email the artist. Everything looks great. I do have one issue with my profile--somehow, on one of them, my landline and mobile number are served up when anyone clicks on my profile picture (or maybe not; since I was logged into my admin account, it might have allowed me to view my own private information). I even checked with Google Support to make sure I'm not breaking any obscure T&C rules or ethics by presenting myself, my site, as "Southern Muse," while my profile pages clearly let everyone know who I am, on a "need-to-know" basis, if, for example, they should get an email from me or click through the site and view my profile or "About Us" section. In the little "self-check" I did to see if my email aliases are working properly, each email that came into my (one) inbox had the right look and feel: my business-owner persona had the "D" icon at the top ("D" for "Deborah"). My art persona had my pretty morning bird painting on its little profile icon. And my personal email had the little profile picture of my sister and I in the snow. The name on all of the emails is my real name, not my display name (so I'm not sure how that would work for businesses who want their sales people to use the "sales" alias). It all works well for me. I even found that I can update my old blogs, created in my personal GMail account, so that the profile pretty much matches my Southern Muse one, if I want to. I haven't done that, because I'm afraid viewers might think of it as a mirror site--so instead, I use a slightly different display name and present a little message letting them know it's really me: Southern Muse in disguise. For $6 per month, it's still half the price of my old hosting plan, and not nearly the headache to build. One more disclaimer: if I do my work on my personal computer at home, and log into my "business" Google account and later my "personal" GMail account, I do get some "cookie" issues--some error messages and account conflicts, especially if I have logged in using my mobile phone. Right now, those issues are minor, and I have been able to overcome them by using different browsers to log into my two accounts. There was (and still is) a learning curve, but in general, all is well. Though I am quite tired. So, off to bed now...