Is it a multiple personality or backup?

As I was making my rounds through the various Grazing blogs I am running, it occurred to me that it would be much simpler to settle for one blog and put all of my entries there.

I was in that position with Home Grazing Number One. I called it the support blog for Belltower News, but it was becoming the blog to which I wrote the most.

Then the server crashed and all of the entries went south. That's when I went looking for all of the other methods of blogging. Thingamablog, the input program I was using for Home Grazing, was unstable, w:bloggar worked well enough for the Blogger based Bell Tower News. But I was eager to know what else was out there.

I found pLog and Word Press. I threw up a blog for each. I used blog-city TypePad, Tripod, Bravenet, WebCrimsom, Live Journal, Opera Journal, Apcal, BlogSpirit, ModBlog, MSN Spaces, Multiply, (an odd one,) Xanga, SquareSpace, and probably a few I tried once and gave up.

Most were free and web-based. TypePad and SquareSpace were pay services. pLog, WordPress and Thingamablog were server based and require a server with MySql database support.

The result of this quest has shown us that there are many ways to come to the same result, a blog. None of them are perfect. Each has just one or two things that doesn't make it the default blog. Blogger is the longest lasting of the online blogs. When there was blogger pro, I used that.

WordPress, so far, has given me the most satisfaction for the server based. Thingamablog crashed on me in an earlier version, the blog templates aren't stable, you have to republish the entire blog to bring them back into readable condition. It's link to the RSS news feeder, and your ability to post a news link on your blog is a nice feature.

Then there's Drupal. It seems to be a very popular program for the more serious bloggers. The program's writer left a comment to me on another blog with the promise that the interface will soon be more user friendly. I won't give up on it.

At BlogSpirit, I am using the free version. There is a subscription service here. I am reminded of it occasionally, like just now when it told me to save the entry, and then let me know if I had used the subscription, this would not have been necessary. It's a bit of a nag, but just a bit. I like the way the writing page is set up.

=30=