Blogs are becoming an easy way to have a presence on the web. Most personal sites these days are blogs. TypePad and Blogger are getting into the mainstream. They had normally been called the ICQ of websites.
The former is fee-based, while the latter is free. What sets them apart from the old days of free (or paid) websites? The richness of content and ease of use. Most of the blog content is syndicated (RSS), and links are, most of the time, ads. With blogs, you type away, add your images or photos, click a button, and, ergo, instant but professional-looking website – uh, er – blog!
Blogs are great if you love to write and put your ideas on the web. Unlike regular websites, blogs lack the snazzy extra features that give one total control of what to put on the site.
However, what it lacked in features was its ease of use, which casual web users loved the most and lured them to sign up for its services.
Since I host this site on my own web server, I decided to give the most popular one – Movable Type from SixApart – a peek.
From what I had read before, I needed the latest versions of Movable Type, MySQL, and the database hooks—these were quickly downloaded and installed on the server (Perl is also required, but this is already included in OS X).
After doing a lot of web searches, it took me some time to set it up and get it running, using instructions from maczealots.com. My plan was to incorporate the ‘blogger’ into this website but I backed out on the last-minute.
It was a hardware hog—well, at least for my current setup and use. Rebuilding was quite slow. Since the Mac G4 is also my FTP server and webcam host, I didn’t like the extra strain Movable Type put on the server. Maybe I can incorporate it on this site later on—when I get my hands on a G5!
—notes:
A few months later, after acquiring an Apple iMac G5 and testing other blogging software, I integrated the same blogger—Movable Type—into my website on Oct. 01, 2004.
My other blog: kupitero.blogspot.com
Download the XML FeedReader here