Well, that worked.
This main blog now runs on Movable Type. I put off switching from Blogger Pro for a long time, for a lot of reasons. First among these is that Blogger was, and is, a great product made by talented people whom I like and respect. I know a lot of people switch web tools all the time, or with little thought, but I struggled with the idea for a long time because I feel a particular loyalty to Blogger.
If you look all the way back to the oldest entries in the Blogger directory, you'll see that the only public blog older is Ev's, and that the other two of the same age as mine have both moved on from Blogger. So I kinda liked being able to say I was the oldest continuously-running Blogger blog except Ev's.
The fact that I'm still going to run some of the other sections of this site on Blogger, and that I'd still recommend it unequivocally to anyone who's starting out in the world of weblogs, says a lot for the product. But my needs have changed, and my programming skills have improved, and it's time to use a new tool so I can do the things I want to add to this site.
It might not seem like much to you, but I've been doing this site one way, every day, for a long time now. This weblog is three years old on Saturday, and I started using Blogger pretty shortly after I started it. So it's a habit that'll be hard to change.
There'll be some little things broken and in-progress the next few days, so bear with me.
Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
Cool stuff you are listening to there!
I'm in the midst of deciding what I want to do vis a vis blogger as well. Do I want to stick with it, do I want to switch to MT? Haven't yet decided. But I do appreciate the thoughts you and others have posted regarding it -- helps me make a more informed decision as I move forward with procuring non-blogspot space, etc., etc. :)
I felt somehow disloyal when I switched from Blogger to MT - like I was turning my back on an old friend. I'd only been using it just over a year, but it still felt like an important part of my blogging life, as it set me on my way. Strange to feel that way about web aps, but we do grow attached...
Yeah, but does Moveable Type have t-shirts as gosh-darn hip as Blogger's? Hmm?
FYI: I didn't check how far back it goes, but your last several months' archives, while properly named, are all displaying this month's entries.
I just made the jump about a week ago myself. Yes, there are the pangs of guilt but also the giddiness of having a diffrent level of control with my weblog. I went through this once before, moving from NewsPro to Blogger.
Welcome to the club.
Giddy isn't the word. Blogger was my first, and I've returned to it several times for ease of use and "back to basics" purposes. MT, though, is just a powerhouse. Sleek little design, and ever so many features.
*wipes drool away, quotes 'A Knight's Tale'*
Welcome to the New World.
Good luck Anil, I just made the transition myself (though I stopped using Blogger shortly after I left the company). What's been weirdest for me is typing in such a small box. I really got used to having a lot more room to see my words on display. I guess I'll get used to it.
On a different note, it makes me sad that Blogger has failed to develop and is losing its original and power users. So much unrealized potential there...
What's worse is being the ninth person commenting on the joys of MT here.
I just did the switch from Blogger Pro to MT myself. Of course, I still walk around with a Blogger shirt and recomend it to anyone who asks, but they toys available with MT are just too much fun (and easier to manipulate than Blogger's hacks). And strangely, it was the added features of Blogger Pro that convinced me to move to MT.
Good luck Anil. (be sure to enable TrackBack)
No MT fawning, just wanted to say: comments! That's a pleasant surprise.
Yeah, comments on your site! But I'm sorry you couldn't get my PHP/MySQL CMS to run on your server. MT is a vast improvement over Blogger, but I still wasn't that excited with it when I tested it out a week ago -- there's still too many limitations for what you can do with it and the pain of having to wait for it to rebuild your pages when you make changes. Trust me, you'll be wanting to roll your soon... [or at least install a dozen or so MT hacks...]
Ditto the sentiment about comments. :)
yeah, I agree with the more comments thing. we like what you say anil! we want to participate with you and share.
:o)
You kids love your comments, eh? The only problem with comments is that when I enable them, people use them. :)
And Matt, yeah. I'll definitely be hacking together some stuff. One of the main reasons I finally switched is because of the MySQL support; Now I can do whatever I want, on top of the massive base of features MT includes.
I wonder why everyone is switching to MT when there are so many nice PHP/MySQL blog tools available.
For instance pMachine, which is looking very complete. And don't forget B2/Cafelog, Sunlog, and Nucleus (which I use myself). The combination of PHP and MySQL can have a lot of advantages...
Oh, I'm quite sold on PHP/MySQL. The majority of my projects (and large parts of this site) run on that combination, along with all of my work at my day job.
I landed here by one link on another homepage. a nice side, I comes back certainly times :-) Greetings from Germany
Very useful comments - good to read