Blogging software

Sun Feb 3 10:20:42 UTC 2008

On Feb 3, 2008 1:02 AM, Tony Baechler <tony at baechler.net> wrote:

> Hi, am I asking for too much?  Your reply indicates that I am.  I'm new
> to creating a blog although I've been reading feeds since 2004-ish.
> I've looked at many CMSs before and I don't think that's what I want.
> I'm looking for something designed for blogging.  I'll still look at the
> CMS package you suggest though.  I'm also looking for an accessible CMS,
> but not for a blog.  The CMS would be a separate site.  If it has a good
> blog module that does mostly what I'm looking for and supports multiple
> sites, that would certainly be a good option.  Sorry if I'm asking for
> too much, like I said, I'm new to blog creation.  I never had an
> interest until now and I want something that requires no fuss to set up
> and use.  I don't really need advanced features, that would be a bonus.
> Podcast support would be nice but not necessary for now.
>

<book>

There are a lot of CMS that have a blogging module or extension. There are
fewer CMS that support multiple sites running from the same instance. On the
other hand, I don't know of any CMS that is simple to install and configure
if you don't have experiencing in managing a web server.

On the other hand, if you start with a CMS "farm" that uses the CMS you
would eventually like to host on your own server, then you will be able to
fairly easily transfer the data from the "farm" to your own server later.
And you only have to deal with configuration; the installation is handled
for you.

Most industrial strength open source CMS have developers involved in the
project that operate CMS farms. Usually, you'll find a link on the project
home page to a page that lists and links CMS farms that run that CMS.

The reason for choosing what CMS you want to use eventually at the beginning
of the process is that interoperability among different CMS is a really dicy
proposition. So switching CMS down the line can be a real pain.

The downside of going with one of the farms initially is that usually all
you can get is a standard version with just the selection of extensions that
are available to everyone using the farm. In other words, there are some
definite limits on how far you can go with customization when working with a
farm.

Some farms are free as in beer. E.g., <http://www.wordpress.com> or Google's
Blogger. Others are very inexpensive. If you go with a farm, it is important
to do some research and check out what users have to say about the quality
of service. Some are pretty fair; others are out to skin you alive.

If you want a real domain name rather than something like
tonys-blog.whiz-bang-cms.com, it's good practice to register the domain name
yourself rather than allowing the hosting service to do it for you. There
are hosting services out there that advertise a free domain name if you sign
up, but then you discover a year or two later that they've registered it in
their own name and will charge you big bucks to buy the domain name from
them.

An organization I work with recently went through this, and had to change
their domain name in lieu of paying the extortion money. That caused an
awful lot of broken links to the site and and a real hit on the amount of
site traffic and search engine ranking.

If you want to go the route of running your own server from the beginning, a
good practice is to maintain one or more test installations on your local
machine to experiment with for customization purposes before you make
changes on your web site. It's all too easy to mess up a site by just
hacking your way through customization on the server. Get it right on your
local machine and then implement the changes on the server.

</book>

Best regards,

Marbux

> Rob Harris wrote:
> > Wow, now this is a request and a half and didn't get to the end.  The
> blog
> > engines you mentioned can usually be found under Fantastico of a hosting
> > provider.  P-Machine is what is called  CMS or Content Management System
> and
> > I think there's a free one you can down load called CMSMS though can't
> now
> > remember what the second  MS is for.  An old and now unsupported version
> of
> > P-machine works extremely well and does everything you said - it was the
> > prototype before the company went commercial and try to disuade or
> distract
> > people from using this version and try and stop hosting providers
> offering
> > it.  It is a PHP application and does more or less everything you said
> and
> > it is as easy as you require.  I don't post to mine a lot though you can
> > take a quick look here - http://www.apearl.net/his - which shows some of
> the
> > basic features listed.  The online file manager is one of the more
> useful so
> > I can modify files on the fly if I make a hiccup on one.  This is to
> say, I
> > can navigate my file tree (once logged in as admin!), select a file and
> it
> > will be loaded into a page in a text area where you can edit it,  then
> go to
> > the bottom and click save and whallah,   you've just fixed a bug!
> >
> > I find PHP a useful language to learn and write some of this kind of
> thing
> > myself.  Someo f those efforts are here - http://randex.apearl.net which
> is
> > random selection from a large content collection and i'm now adding
> tools
> > like online calculator and dns lookup/reverse lookup amongst other
> things.
> > Mailing right off a page is quite straight forward in fact, without
> having
> > the risky mailto: link on the page.  This is all hidden in the PHP
> script
> > and this code can be locked and made invisible.  The client browser only
> > sees what the script sends to it.
> >
> > But that's an aside,  I've given you suggestions to search for and the
> CMSMS
> > might be the most readily available to find and download.  They're at
> > something like www.cmsms.org or something like that.
> >
> > Hth,  RobH.
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Tony Baechler" <tony at baechler.net>
> > To: "Linux for blind general discussion" <blinux-list at redhat.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, February 02, 2008 4:45 PM
> > Subject: Blogging software
> >
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Am I better served with a commercial blog site like wordpress.com,
> > blogger.com, etc or can I do what I want on my own Linux server?
> >
> > I'm running Debian Etch with Apache 1.3 and php4.  It will eventually
> > be upgraded to Apache 2.2 and php5.  If I go with a blogging site, I
> > don't want intrusive ads.  If I go with something on the server, I
> > want something fairly easy to set up and fairly basic but could be
> > expanded later.  I don't plan to produce a podcast right now but
> > might eventually.  What would be nice but not required would be a way
> > that I can email blog entries to a special address and be able to
> > login with ssh and just type out a blog entry quickly.  I don't want
> > a complicated web interface.  The idea is to write my blog entry
> > while I'm thinking about it, otherwise I forget.  I don't need
> > comments, trackbacks, etc because I would turn them off anyway and I
> > have too much spam already.  I want standards-compliant rss feeds
> > that can be parsed by any reader.  I don't care what language it's
> > written in but I have the stock Debian Apache package so I don't
> > think I have perl as a module.  Probably php is best.  If it allows
> > email blog entries, there would need to be a way to approve them as
> > being from me, again because of spam.  The idea would be that if I
> > must use a web interface, I want to quickly log in and be at an entry
> > screen.  I would be using Firefox under Windows and possibly
> > Lynx.  It would be nice to have something like a text editor for
> > blogs so I can just do something like "blog this," type something,
> > save and it rebuilds the rss feed etc.  I have minimal html skills
> > and I don't want to learn a markup language just to write
> > something.  It should be self-maintaining so I don't have to rebuild
> > the database, web site, etc.  A search engine would be nice but not
> > necessary.  I would like an "about the blog" section at the top of
> > all entry pages.
> >
> > What do you suggest?  I've looked at the wordpress package but it
> > looks like it has security issues.  Should I look at a commercial
> > blog site or try a particular package on my own?
> > ----------
> > Tony Baechler
> > Baechler Productions
> >
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