Saturday, January 29, 2005

Ch-ch-ch-Changes, Part 1

This might be geeky. So, if you don't like geeky rants, you might want to check back later for Headline News or something. Anyway, I'm going to talk about The Move.

If you had visited this site before last Saturday night, you saw a different site. When this blog launched, it was hosted on Blogger. Now, lots of folks don't like Blogger. And I understand their dislike. But I don't share it. I like Blogger. To me, it's like AOL. Okay, lots of folks don't like AOL. But I think it's much better than it used to be. But, even then, it's always been a good thing. I used AOL on occasion. In fact, I still have an AOL account, but don't use it much. And while I was always one to avoid using its browser (the old one), I understood that it gave lots of people an easy way to get to the Internet. And that's not always a bad thing.

I think lots of people -- particularly geeky folks -- considered the Internet "theirs" and if you were geek-deficient, you didn't belong. Wrong answer. Everybody is a novice at first. I mean, how would some over-geeked 20-something feel if I told them to sit down and shut up because I've been going online since they were in diapers. Or still in their daddy's scrotum. The point is, they were novices and eventually learned more and became today's experts. Or, at least, uber-geeks. Now, I'm not an expert. I'm not an uber-geek. But I can get around the Internet okay for a closer-to-50-than-40 Georgia boy.

Same thing with Blogger. It's the AOL of blogging. And the changes and improvements and new features they have added have made it a very good, but not great, blogging service. Plus, it's free! Now, we're approaching great. And while it doesn't do everything, you can get some free add-ons that add some really cool features. For example, HaloScan expands commenting functionality to allow anyone, not just Blogger account holders, to post. Plus, it adds trackback functionality. While it doesn't all work extremely smooth, it works smooth enough to make it worthwhile. And basic service is free. Also, Hello works pretty well for posting pictures with Blogger, since Blogger doesn't allow posting of pictures. Hello isn't the best thing in the world, but it does expand the functionality very well. So, by using Blogger -- plus some add-ons -- you can have a lot of cool features on a blog. And the templates are pretty good. Some are very, very good. And, they offer the ability to modify HTML if you're geeky enough to try that. And, like I said, it's free.

All that means that to me, Blogger is a very fine blogging service. And some of my favorite blogs are on Blogger. Blogger good.

So, why then, did I leave it for TypePad? Well, TypePad offers some functionality that I like and want. I like the ease that they offer the ability to display "Recent Comments" and "Recent Posts." The ability to categorize is also something I wanted. I may be wrong, but I think that most of the folks who come back for second, third, and more visits, do so for the Headline News. And, if someone only likes Headlines and doesn't care for the Alliance Assignments like Filthy Lies and Precision Guided Humor, or standard insane ramblings, or even if they do, they can click on the category and display only those type of posts. If I can make it easier for someone who only wants to read one type of post, then I want to do it. Also, the calendar allows someone to go to a particular day. Like a calendar.I also like that TypePad has commenting AND trackback functionality built in. It integrates very well, I think. And, TypePad does have more good-looking templates than Blogger. Plus, when I got my own domain name for the blog, TypePad provided very easy instructions for integrating it into my blog.

Having said all of that, TypePad doesn't allow modification of HTML without the highest cost service. TypePad isn't free, you see.

So, why would I exchange a free services that I say is very good for a pay service that has only a few more features? Easy. I wanted the features, and TypePad is a quality service. To me, it's worth it. If you have a blog, it might not be worth it to you.

But, there's a lot more to moving a blog than just signing up and modifying some settings. A lot more. A heckuva lot more. That's for later.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with you. I left blogger within 24 hours because of what it didn't do. The frustration I have with typepad, which I like because it is easy, is the html thing. I am unable to ping technorati automatically when the site is updated. I have to do it manually. I wrote the typepad help people and they said it was not part of the scheme. But other than that and some pretty stiff design formats, I like it.

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