Getting Off Blogspot
Den Beste has posted a lengthy commentary on the perils of blogger (and virtues of his CMS, CityDesk) here.
I find it pretty interesting, since I started with Blogger on my own hosted space (and never lost a Blogger post. Blogger actually does store entries locally, though some people have had files get corrupted and lost, and one should always make backups), moved on from Blogger to GreyMatter because Blogger was down too often, moved on from GreyMatter to Movable Type because GM stresses a server after a few hundred entries, and moved on to Nucleus with Reductio Ad Absurdum because I liked the extra flexibility of a PHP-driven CMS, as well as dynamic generation of pages pulled from a mySQL database (a very efficient way to store web data). Eventually I will redesign these pages, and make use of Nucleus.
While Den Beste does quite a job of selling CityDesk, I would caution that ultimately a person should adopt the web tool best suited to her purposes (and he suggests that also). If you're interested in lots of comments, trackback, and other social-networking aspects of the web, then CityDesk may not be your best bet. If you're interested in functionality beyond the typical blog, then MT may not be as good an option as a PHP-driven CMS like Nucleus, b2 (both free, and both supported by a programming-oriented community) or pMachine (commercial, and probably a little easier to use because of it). I can't speak to CityDesk or pMachine, but the other tools I mention in this paragraph use the Blogger API, meaning you CAN use various editing tools instead of the default web interface. I don't use those tools, but I presume there is one that offers a WYSIWIG style approach.
With regard to backups, all of the PHP-driven tools I mention use mySQL backends, so your database is always one file (and yes, you should back it up regularly), just as with CityDesk. MT also has the option of using a mySQL backend, and those of you using MT should definitely make use of it if your server permits (much more reliable than the default flat file database).
As servers/bandwidth go, most folks will never need Den Beste's setup, which consists of his own server and a business-class RoadRunner connection. Indeed, aside from the luxury of having the server sitting a few feet away, a person could lease a dedicated server at a major datacenter (NAC, HE, Rackshack) for roughly the price of RR biz class, enjoy higher-quality bandwidth (we shall leave the discussion of ATDN/RR for another time), and sell space to her friends. Repeat that a few times, and suddenly you have an operation like HostingMatters. At the other pricing extreme, it would be hard to beat Dean Esmay's offer ($15 for a domain, $5 for hosting, free setup of an MT blog). Hard, but not impossible, that is -- the really thrifty (and slightly more technologically ambitious) can go to WebhostingTalk and request offers for hosting. It's a great forum, and a lot of reputable web hosts spend a lot of time there.
Plus, there are services like TypePad and Blog-City. But color me a little skeptical on those -- the tendency always seems to be to oversell server resources on such systems, to the point they become less useful. The MT folks are good, though, so maybe TypePad will prove the exception.
In any case, there are plenty of options for getting off blogspot and other (potentially unreliable) free services for not all that much cash. And plenty of people willing to help out. I've actually made hosting offers to several people because I have extra space, and have offered assistance with MT and Nucleus to quite a few others (spent part of tonight working on one such case, actually). It's frustrating not being able to link the archives of my favorite sites, or even get to them at all sometimes. And I don't see much of a reason for that condition to persist, other than inertia. So what are you waiting for, blogspotters? Time to move!
[Posted at 00:55 CST on 06/07/03] [Link]
