I feel a little bit like the girl who cried wolf when I announced the url for my my new WordPress blog and then had to take it down for maintenance temporarily – not a great nod towards my new preferred blogging platform. The speed factor, or lack thereof was driving me crazy. I have a low tolerance for slow sites – so I can’t imagine the torture that I put you through if you visited in the past 2 days. It turns out that WordPress had nothing to do with it. It was my web host, Startlogic (all I can say is DON’T do it!), who I have promptly dumped in favor of Blue Host. Yeah, I’m out a few extra dollars, but it will be worth it in the long run. I think you’ll agree that my pages load faster now and all of the widgets and whatnots available with WordPress are now working as intended. So, now, I will tuck my tail between my legs and carry on….

Meanwhile, if you find any issues or bugs, please let me know so I can fix it now. I’ve rolled over my blogroll – please update your links to mine, provided you still like me of course.

That’s it for today,
~Cynthia

Shall I wax poetic for you?

Wordpress Pros:

• Akismet Spam catcher
• Easily change themes with one click
• Easily edit posts and comments – no need to delete the entire comment just to edit.
• Intuitive design
• Ability to categorize posts, blogroll, categories and add tags
• Multiple pages available
• Import Blogger or other platform posts, comments and tags
• Cool plugins
• Don’t like your blog name anymore? Change it easily in WP, unlike Blogger where you are stuck with the url – remember when it says “choose your name carefully”?
• Easy user interface
• No annoying word verification thingy like blogger
• Have your own domain – unlike http://coloradoartstudio.blogspot.com (yeah it’s a vanity thing)

Cons:

• I haven’t really found any so far. You really need to use the hosted version to implement a lot of the cool customization aspects of WordPress.
• That costs money
• A wordpress.com hosted site doesn’t allow javascript widgets – but the self hosted one does.
• A hosted wordpress account at wordpress.com has a limited amount of themes unless you buy some of the extras.
• You have to be comfortable mucking around with computer and tech stuff that makes other people hesitate.

I considered other blogging platforms after realizing that blogger just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I knew there was something else out there and went in search. Some candidates were vox, typepad, movable type, serendipity – but when it came right down to it, I liked wordpress the best. I signed up for accounts with most of these companies and gave them a test whirl before deciding on hosting my blog.