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More Upgrades…

As you can see, if you’re reading this on my site, I’ve upgraded WordPress from 1.2 to 1.5. It’s a big upgrade for them, and that’s why everyone that does the upgrade ends up losing their templates. So here we are on the “default” template. At least, it’s not ugly like that last WordPress default template. Anyhow, the upgrade has been done… I’ll be tweaking the template over time. For now, this is what you get.

Katie and I were remembering how, before “blogging” was something everyone did, we’d upload our entries via FTP after hand-coding each and every page. Typically, you’d end up spending at least an hour or so on each entry‚Äîhalf of that writing the entry and the other half making sure all of your HTML tags were in the right places. Those were the days.

Initially, I didn’t want to use software to keep up my journal. Even though most of the old timers fought using blogging software for a long time, I think once you’ve used it once, it’s hard to go back. The first automated blogging tool I used was Blogger (before Google bought it). There really weren’t many other choices out there that didn’t involve a bunch of extra coding to get it to work on your host. Blogger was easy. You could create an account, put in your templates and voila… be up in running in minutes. At the time it was in it’s infancy… a new-fangled way of creating entries without the hassle of hand-coding. This was early 2000.

The only problem I had with Blogger is that it was slow. REALLY slow. They just didn’t have the server capacity to keep things running at a good speed. This led me to try something new that’d I’d heard about‚ÄîMovableType. Another blogging tool that was in it’s infancy at the time, this one allowed you to installed the software, for free, on your own host. This, of course, meant a couple of things. It’d be faster because I’d be the only one using it, and I’d have full control of all of my files. Although Blogger saved my finished files to my server, the software is still what controlled those files. Without it, the files would just be basic HTML files. I wanted full control and so I shifted everything to MovableType, which I used for many years.

The only reason for moving to WordPress initially was because the people at MovableType decided that they wanted to start charging people to use the previously free software. Dumb move. Their first idea was to charge people more if they used the software for multiple “blogs”. The problem with this was that my one website, used at least three separate “blogs” for various sections of the site. That alone would mean I’d have to pay over $100 for the software. MovableType later changed their licensing schema wording to say that if you used it on multiple sites, but people were already soured on them and finding alternatives. The problem people had with them is that the software had been free and the users are the ones to make it what it ultimately ended up being, through the creation of plug-ins and upgraded coding, all free of charge. Then the MovableType people decided to turn around and charge these same people that had volunteered all of their time creating the software. Just insane.

Anyhow… that’s how I ended up using WordPress. Although, the administration panel is a little more clunky than MovableType, this new version seems to clean that up a little bit. And with the volunteers that created all those plugins for MovableType on board, I’m sure WordPress is going to be great in the new few years.

Of course, my server runs on Mac OSX and they’re also going to be including a blogging tool of their own with the next release. I’ll check it out and see how it goes… for now, I’m good with WordPress.

It’s funny how many people have “blogs” these days. Basically, everyone from celebrities to news pundits. Bloggers are even making news more and more. I guess it’s trendy or something. I guess it’s kind of nice to be able to say that you were doing something before it was trendy. Not many of those “famous bloggers” can say they’ve been doing this for 6, 7 or 8 years. Funny how that happens. I totally don’t consider myself one to follow the trends. I do something because I like it. The problem is that, over and over… it ends up being trendy. I’ll wear clothes I like, and it ends up being trendy. I create a journal for fun, and it ends up being trendy. I paint my kitchen a certain color because I think it’s nice and next thing you know you’re watching TV and everyone is painting their rooms the same color. I guess some of us are just born trendsetters. Ugh. That’s sarcasm. Anyone that knows me would know that the last thing I am is a trendsetter.

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