Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
You’ve probably noticed on your last visit or two that this blog has changed a bit. This weekend I converted the blog to a wonderful software package known as WordPress - a blogging system that is used by many, many, many bloggers around the Web.
Why is this notable? For just over four years (since March 25, 2002, when I launched my first dynamic blog) I’ve used blogs that I’ve coded myself. In other words, this is the first time I’ve used a third-party application for my blog. Why? Well, I always convinced myself that coding my own blog created a sense of pride; I could say everything on justinrussell.com was created fully by me. I thought that I could use it as a selling point for getting a job and the like (I never ended up using it). I’m glad that I was able to read the posts and comments from the old versions of the blog; as you can see from the archives to the right (if you’re viewing this at justinrussell.com/blog/ and not via the RSS feed), I’ve got quite a history.
My reason for for the conversion was twofold: philosophical and technical. I’ll be discussing the philosophical side shortly, but I’d like to focus on the technical side for a bit. Non-geeks, you can feel free to stop reading this post now.
I’ve been frustrated with the limitations of my blog for quite a while. I had a great plan (and quite a few pages of sketches) for a system I called PennyJar, a blogging system based mostly on modular post types. Quite simply, I decided that I’d rather spend my time on more experimental and challenging projects. The thousands and thousands of comment spam posts I was receiving was the last straw. I don’t consider the migration a sacrifice at all, though; WordPress offers many features that I’ve wanted for my blog:
- comment moderation (no more database cleanup)
- categories (they’re back!)
- post editing
- integrated image management
- integrated trackbacks and pings for post links
- drafts
- tons of great themes and layouts
- a wonderful community of developers
- plugins!
Let’s talk about plugins for a minute. Plugins extend the functionality of WordPress to allow new features. I’ve already installed two plugins that I really enjoy: Geo and Geo Mashup. To see an example of its usage, check out my BlogMap. See why I like it?
As always, thanks for reading. I really enjoy writing here, whether it’s for thousands of people or just myself. This is the best journal I’ve ever had. If you have any questions or just want to say hi, feel free to e-mail me.
UPDATE: Oh, one other thing. I’ll be slowly but surely going back in my archives doing some conversion of links, images, and more. Hopefully I’ll be able to fix some of the links that have been broken for a while. If you see any links that are broken in older posts, please let me know.
