Takeaway Website

Takeaway Website removes the pain from designing and publishing a site. In truth there's little design involved -- you simply choose from large selections of templates and colours. It's not worth buying the boxed version, as Takeaway Website is browser based. Confusingly the box contains only useful Web utilities such as Firefox and an OnSpeed trial. Simply purchase your activation code from the Mr Site Web site and you can begin.

You'll be asked to key in your preferred domain name, and then the program finds and registers it for you. Our site was online within minutes, although it can take a day or so.

The creative process begins immediately. You select from the myriad colour and template options. As ever with designing Web sites, the biggest danger is over-complication. Fortunately, there are sufficient designs and colour schemes to create a simple, elegant site. You don't have to worry about building a structure for your site, Mr Site does this for you. Create a home page and subsequent pages will link from it. This is a touch limiting, but Takeaway Website is aimed at individuals and businesses who need a good-looking site quickly. Such people will have few complaints.

Inputting text is a cinch. There's a choice of input panes -- the more 'complicated' one has a Word-like toolbar across the top. Inputting links and images is simple, just like using any content-management system.

As with any browser-based tool you'll struggle to upload images if your Web connection's flaky. Oh, and it's a good idea to crop and prepare images before uploading, as the ability to edit within the program is limited. Excellent, easy-to-add back-end extras include guestbooks, photo libraries, MP3 downloads and blogs.