So, yes, I switched from MovableType I’d been using to WordPress. Why? I felt it offered the extensibility, services, and features I want right now.
The Reasons
I had quire a few good reasons to switch to WordPress.
WordPress gives me the option to write a page, or a post to the main blog; MovableType didn’t.
WordPress is written in PHP and not loaded down with cumbersome scripts which slow the whole process of building and rebuilding your site. On MovableType I could only get so far before the server timed out.
As Dane put it the other day, “WordPress is VERY powerful.” Indeed it is. Being written in PHP there are none of the rendering issues I encountered on MovableType.
WordPress is written with a minimum of code making the site very lean and mean. Fast rebuilds, no garbage and fast page load times.
What This Means For You
Well, if you’re using a news aggregator you’re going to have to update your links to my RSS feeds. (Sorry about that.) The new links are:
Entries Only (RSS)
Comments (RSS)
Entries (ATOM)
I was able to get quire a bit of content from over the last 3 years imported before the server timed out. That means you can go back quite a ways in the archive. Some of the stuff from the last 4 months I’m importing manually but that’s ok. I’m also adding tags to all the recent entries.
Speaking of tags. I’m moving to a tag based system to speed up searching for popular categories. Ben Oneill wrote one hell of a plugin that adds tags to entries as well as builds a sandbox of tags for the sidebar.
Don’t worry about broken links for the moment. I left the MT installation in place but I’ve closed commenting and trackbacks to all the entries. Basically it’s a zombie. In the near future I’ll be adding a rewrite to the htaccess file so everyone will get automatically redirected to the right spot.
Trackback and commenting both still work the same.
I’m currently using the default Kubrick theme because I’ve to redesign rather than try to port the old theme over (not that it would be very hard).
I’ll now be able to put together some longer page based articles.
What’s Next
Over the next week or so I’ll be working on the new layout and theme over at my server. Once that is done and I’m somewhat satisfied I’ll port it over here. You should’t notice anything until it’s ready.
I also plan to switch YosemiteBlog over to WordPress in the near future. This is also a good thing as it’ll allow longer articles over there but it won’t be taking place until the theme is ready to go. Part of YosemiteBlog is the look and thats something I feel needs to stay consistent.
Thank You
I’d like to thank you for taking the time to visit and I hope you’ll continue to read The Daily Thing.