This is too easy…

Wow, it’s been just about a day since I decided to bite the bullet and install WordPress on my site, replacing MovableType.

I should have done it sooner.

Honestly, the only time MovableType ever completely worked for me was with my first installation back at version 2.6. There was a version in the middle where I limped badly, and then 3.31 which seemed to work just fine, although changing some aspects was challenging. Then I “upgraded” to MovableType 4.2 –and it was a disaster: I could only get one “style” to work, the default one. When I tried switching styles, it behaved badly, moving columns to the bottom and misaligning everything else.

I even tried to change the header to insert a new banner, and the results were comical and removed within five minutes.

On the other hand, save for some minor coding challenges (quickly overcome with a simple, but obvious, piece of advice from PapaScott), the blog’s looked really good from the first instant. I switched designs to one with the ability to have rotating images at the top—and I love it.

Currently there are 32 different images in rotation at the top of each page, and it’s the luck of the draw as to which one you get. I took all of the photos in rotation, save for the one of me when I was one year old.

Should anybody ask me advice about which software to install on their own website for a blog, I wouldn’t hesitate to say “Not Movable Type”. It’s interface is obtuse, the coding requires expertise, and it can be quite slow.

I am not in a position to say that WordPress is the optimal choice, I just know it’s far better than what I was messing with before.

And hey, I can even write entries in Word ’07 and publish them directly to the website.

I promise this will be the last Meta-Entry for awhile, so I thank those of you who read this for indulging me.

Regular programming resumes tomorrow.