Blogging Software Change

I have changed to software I use to keep the blog organized.

I Initially used iBlog which was a freebie when I had a Mac.com account. The software had some problems in that it did not validate as xhtml. There were lots of errors. But, I was able to get some semblance of blogging up and running.

As time passed, I learned enough to modify the default templates which came with iBlog. Slowly I started eliminating the validation errors and finally eliminated all of them.

A limitation of the mac.com supplied version of iBlog was that the upload of changed and, new files only would not work outside mac.com. For that to work, the ftp feature of the paid version was required. After I changed to a host to allow direct access to my domain names, I was stuck with uploading the entire blog after published change.

One factor which was very annoying was the naming setup. So if I had a post titled This is a Test, the iBlog path was something like /C1684866845/E20051207192206 index.html, which was hard to translate to the post title. The WordPress way with permalinks is /convolutedbrian.com/this-is-a-test.html (other settings are possible).

There was talk of an upgrade to iBlog which I would have considered But at this date, an alpha version has been promised and delayed. So it was time to make a decision. I settled on WordPress. The software with default themes validated without any modification on my part. The post path was now a sensible /convolutedbrian.com/this is-a-test. WordPress has an active development and quite a few themes and plug-ins.

This software is released under the GPL license. The downside for some is that some knowledge of XHTML and PHP is needed to do modifications. A hosting site will need to have PHP and MYSQL installed.

I hope this will be a viable approach for the future. Changing software means adding redirects to map the old post titles to the new post titles as well as learning the gotcha’s and glitches of new software.

The iBlog experience was positive for me. I learned a lot while developing new templates. I hope that the alpha version of the upgrade is released soon, followed by an eventual new version. This kind of software is more usable for many people who don’t have the time or inclination to work with something like WordPress.

There are other packages similar to WordPress such as Serendipity. Drupal contains blog ability while offering built-in forums and more. I’ll be looking closer at Drupal for a future project.

For the present, I’ll be fine tuning my WordPress installation.