Desi Train

Lesson 1: The journey begins –
Alien+Predator < = Blog Software

{Dad and Mom had tears in their eyes,
Their son leaving home…forever,
He opened the door,
Looked back with sad eyes,
One last look,
And he was gone,
To stand on his own two feet,
Dad Mom hugged each other…silent, cries of pain…
The clock ticked another 10 minutes,
The door crashed opened, their son standing there,
“It’s hell out there, can I stay in for some more?”
Mr.Blogspot and Ms. LiveJournal saw a smile return back to their faces…}

So you wanna Blog huh! Ok let’s fast forward a bit to the future. You’ve been blogging for say 10 minutes, 10 hours or 10 months maybe. Have a huge number of visitors turning up everyday on your blog (how many really? You can tell me…2? 20? 35?). Now you want to blog on your own domain name, Ahh!!! The joys of seeing some type www.yourblogname.com …you want that and more…the bells and whistles like seeing beautiful designs, having XXX ads (and we all know who clicks most on them, yes we all are looking at you), show recent comments, show news tickers, guest books, other web pages and so much more…ok we get it. You wanna move on.

Plus you are bored. Blogspot, Livejournal or whatever Free Site you blog on, no longer interests you. I know I know. It’s always about ME ME ME. Or perhaps you’ve had a bad experience with the site which hosts your free blog. I know. I had one. This portal which had a free blog channel was quite famous among the Desi community (Hinglish: Desi = Indian, more detail translation – people from India, much more detailed translation – a country in Asia, having nothing to do with any country in the Middle East, What is the Middle East you ask? Forget about it! I give up).

So this portal one morning gets up and says to itself -

“How happy would I be if I simply shut down the blog channel. People will get a – page not found message – when they try to go to their blogs. Plus, to make them feel worse, I will not leave any rhyme or reason or comment as to why they can’t see the blog site. Then I’ll make them feel more shitty, by not providing them access to import/extract their work from my blog channel. I’ll be rolling on the floor laughing out loud, when I turn on the blog channel for 15 minutes every midnight and have fun in seeing the bloggers scrambling to spread the word so everyone can copy all their work as quickly as they can on their computers. And as they are doing that, I’ll turn the blog channel off. I’ll then take them to the brink of committing suicide by not replying to any of their emails, not answering their calls and simply remain quiet and watch the fun. How happy would I be if I did this for 3 months.”

God help you if the portal you put your blog on, thinks like that every morning. Leave, Run. Forget your fucking pjs. Get them later. Run NOW!!! By the end of the second month of my portal’s sick game, I and many other bloggers of this site simply left for Blogspot or other free dependable blog sites. So now you are here ready to start a new blogging life…

The problem is where to begin. Worry not my Chap (or Chapee if you are a female reading this), help is here. But lets not call it “help” but an emulation process of the journey to blogging hell that you will undertake following my (ME ME ME!!) footsteps.

Ok I’m kidding. Your first step will be to select the right software. And for this you have to know the answers to a few of these questions (I’m sure there are more but for now these will suffice – you are a non-techie, so act like one!) Do you want a free package? Do you want to pay for it? Do you have a list of the things you want to be able to do? How much control do you need? Would you hate it if you have to open any of the software files to make modifications? Do you want captcha in your comments section? Do you want….want want want…

Let’s start with this wonderful page which lists some of the popular blogging packages out there and how they compare to each other…The site here gives a pretty decent view of a feature by feature comparison. Spend some time on it. And then move ahead.

Here’s another blogger with pretty detailed comparison list of hers (this is an old post and things have changed since then). Another sweet chart you can find here.

Ok so, your head’s pretty clear after going through the link above? Good. I was more messed up after reading the comparison chart. So you are doing good. Much better than me.

So have you decided you wanna pay or get a free blogging software? If you are going to pay for it, make sure you get answers from the software firm, for all the questions which have been put above and all those questions which are zooming in and out of your head right now, 10 minutes ago and 10 minutes from now.

So you want free software? So many choices, which one to choose? One of the most important things I was looking for was –

It should have static pages. – For Non-Techies – when you write a post and click “Publish” on you blog screen, the software will either save your post in a database or make a physical file which contains your post and tons of other shit that you and I don’t need to know about.

Why Static? I was under the impression that static pages will reduce the load on the server your blog in on. But it does take a long time to publish a new post, depending on how big your blog is. Think Blogspot if you know what I mean.

The other reason was the confusing reports all over the internet that Search Engines like Google do not index dynamic pages and as such if anyone is searching for something which is mentioned in one of your posts, SORRY! Your post won’t show up in the search results list. Others vehemently contend is not true. I’m not sure who’s right here. Now working on WordPress which is dynamic, has not helped my blog be searched by Google. Only the home page shows up in the result. Google has basically said bye bye to the rest of the pages.

But WordPress forum tells me to have hope. It takes a few weeks to a few months for Google to show all your pages if relevant, in it’s search results. So I’m waiting here typing google.com every f-ing day to see if my site shows up. Hope is a powerful word to live by.

So if I wanted Static pages why the hell did I choose WordPress which is Dynamic? Well I didn’t. At the end of my research I was clear it was going to be Movable Type

The problem with Movable Type is that even though it is a free software, it is owned by a firm which issues licenses and paid packages for a variety of services on its blogging package. How this effects you? – Since their software is not Open Source, programmers (remember we need them) can’t open their package and build free bells and whistles for idiot non-techies like you (?) and me(sure). So there are not many plugins out there for Movable Type which you would like to add on to your basic package. And if you want a unique feature not available in the basic pack, wanna search for a plugin, forget it.

Another point. If you are someone who changes things a lot (a few in the world call it “fickle minded”), wants things your way (a few in the world call it “stringent”) and are a stickler for perfection (in some parts of mother earth they call it “asshole”), then you might as well start doing something else other than blogging. Water balloon throwing on the employees coming in and out of the Blog software companies is a good start. Caution: the things mentioned here are to be taken in a sense of humor. But if you still want to throw a few water balloons on the poor employees, I’m not gonna be a part of it. But if you throw balloons on my behalf I’m your best friend or lover (if and only if you are a chapee).

The point to make here is, there won’t be any design in any of the blogging packages which will satisfy you. You – NonTechie. They – No Design. You – Stick to your free blogspot or livejournal.

But if you can open files and have dabbled in HTML and CSS (NonTechies – Daddy is talking adult xxx stuff, please leave the room), and if you are now on Blogger/Blogspot you would notice there is just one screen to go to change your site design or add or modify any part of your blogsite design.

But Mr. MT a.k.a. Mr. Movable Type, is not one which will take it lying down. Whatever Mr. Blogspot can do, Mr. MT will do it harder, tougher, shittier…in other words your life is soon gonna be turned to yes…shit.

My dear Blog reader, please be ready to change not one, not two but upto four files if you want to change your blog template or blog design, every time each time. Plus Mr. MT does not give you any click and get all your posts from your Blogger/LJ blog (My hosting provider did that for me). You want to add some features? Please spend some time (infact a lot of time) searching on the Internet and if you do find any plugins 9 out of 10 times it is written by the same person whose site you were reading on page 2 of Google search. Sorry. Skimming through 136 pages of Google brought you back to square one.

I was fed up. Static pages or no static pages. MT is a living hell for non-techies. Some on the internet contend that they use and like MT cause of the flexibility to change templates (designs). Bullshit. If you want to have the designs exactly as they are, true. But WordPress can do that too, one click and your website design is changed. But wait. Do you remember who you are? Fickle minded, stringent, asshole…Ring a bell? Changing designs at a click of a button is not where the journey ends for people like you and me. It starts. Now you wanna change the new design and make it look exactly like the picture in your head. MT isn’t the way to go if you, Mr./Ms. Non-techie wants all that.

Six hours later I call up my hosting provider. Ask him to remove MT and install WordPress.

Not that WP is any different. It has 3 to 4 files where the template would need to be modified, but then I found a design (included in WP package) that involves changing just one file and all your other pages like individual page, archive page, category pages, get changed to the new look.

Plus WP is open source. You want a recent comments plugin. Google it. You want a sticky post plugin. Google it. You want an Ad rotator. Google it. Page after page of information. But the coolest thing about it is you put your plugin in the required folder, go to your WP admin screen. Voila! You see your new plug in, with an “Activate” option. And you are done.

Of course it isn’t perfect. Remember it’s Open Source. So if have problems or need your answers right here, right now…you are not gonna get it. Not when you want it. Generous developers who can spare the time will read your sorry state on some discussion board (one run by WP itself) take pity on you and reply to your question. Now if that answer is not what you were looking for or that answer gives rise to more questions…you are a in merry go round shit hole. Suggestion: Try learning to enjoy it. It will help the blood pressure.

But the coolest thing that Blogger/Blogspot has that WP and MT don’t is posting right from your Microsoft Word. All the spell checks, alignments, make this bold, that italic et. all is handled in your Word doc, click the Blogger plugin button and zooooom. There lands your post on the internet. The editors in these blog softwares are to put it mildly…screwed up. Nothing so far has been able to replace using the Word doc with the Blogger plugin. These days I first type my blog in word, then paste it in the WP editor (not the WP rich editor which is shit), do all the formating before posting it to the blog.

And then Google doesn’t search my pages. So a few months from now, when you have your WordPress, gone through hell and are wondering why Google doesn’t search your blog pages, inspite of doing all the things that you could possibly do, please join this movement of “Google should search my pages or else I will stop blogging” – a powerful movement, not that powerful now but will soon be. For more on this movement please visit the movement director’s website.

Blogging off Independent software isn’t worth it, if you are a NonTechie and don’t have time and patience to spare tinkering with the software. You’d rather spend time blogging. True. Blogspot offers services that will publish your posts on any site you want. So you could make use of that powerful feature rather than land in a shit pool of mess. The catch is you won’t get all that you want to do in your blog, with your blog, for your blog.

So if you still haven’t paid any attention to my advice, it’s time to move to the next Lesson, but after a short break…

Lesson 2: Dad! My blog needs a home!

This entry was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 2:01 pm
Filed under Technology
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