SporkBomb

To be frank, I have attempted this whole blogging thing before, but I could never stick with it. In the past I have used WordPress (WP) exclusively as my blog publishing platform. I was reasonably happy with it. Everything worked reasonably well and the community was second to none. The only (sort of) negative thing in my view were the frequent updates. Now, don’t get me wrong; I like my software secure and fresh as much as the next guy, but the vulnerabilities kept being discovered and patches kept being made. I’m not really complaining, just noticing. I assume that some people may perceive frequent updates to be a bother.

After my most recent hiatus from blogging was over, I decided to give MovableType (MT) a shot. The installation was not a problem for me. It was just as easy as the WP installation. As long as you know how to upload files, create a database and set permissions on your web host, you too will have no problems. Once the install was complete, I was awe struck by how robust MT seemed. Plus, the features which came with the default install were wonderful. I was thoroughly impressed by everything in my new MT isntall… except for one thing-themes. I’m not a very visually creative guy. While I know my way around CSS and DHTML, I cannot for the life of me put a decent looking webpage together. Unfortunately, none of the templates I could find for MT did do it for me, even after some tweaking. The stock templates in MT are pretty abysmal. I was left with this nagging issue, eating away at me like a worm larvae eats an apple.

I thought about it long and hard and I finally decided to go back to my old faithful WP. I realize that WP is harder to secure, but so what? I am a technophile after all! I enjoy hardening my web apps. Also, my template issue was resolved when I found the wonderful Journalist template by the very talented Lucian Marin. I’m not going to go in detail about the kinds of things I did to secure my WP install because that would make it too easy for some of the more nefarious people. Let’s just say that I have a recent backup and I’m hoping for the best.

So, in conclusion, WP vs. MT-which is better? If you want an easy way to manage multiple blogs on a single installation and you enjoy the feeling of seemingly robust software, go with MT. If you’re the casual writer who enjoys tinkering with software and wonderful support every step of the way, definitely go with WP and its community. If you stop by the #wordpress channel on the Freenode network, I may even be able to assist you myself (nickname: jas01).

While this wasn’t very surprising on the grand scheme of things, I was still a bit put off by the news when I read it in my favorite RSS software–NewsFire (Mac only).

That’s right, WordPress 2.5 is out and all the 2.5 RC2 testing I did was all for nothing but the fun of it. Great, I don’t mind!

Anyway, everything in yesterday’s post still applies. Keep in mind that wp-content is not to be deleted. In fact, if you somehow manage to delete it, make sure you restore it from backup before attempting the upgrade. If you accidentally delete your default theme, you will be greeted by the “white screen of death.” In order to remedy this, simply go into http://yourblog/wp-admin and select a different theme.

As of today at 4:30PM EST, this blog is running on the second release candidate of WordPress 2.5. On the 26th of this month, Matt Mullenweg posted a short screencast of WP 2.5’s new features. This screencast inspired me to give the new version a try. On a side note, I hope Matt gets better in his dental situation (watch the screencast for more info).

In case you’re thinking about testing the new WP 2.5 RC2, here are the answers to some questions I had, that may not be intuitive to find.

1. No matter what you’re changing on your blog, always, always backup. You’ll find detailed backup instructions here.
2. The upgrade process is the same as the usual process you go through for any 2.X.X version. Use the upgrade instructions here for a short description of what you need to do; the instructions here for more detailed instructions.
3. Check the compatibility of your plugins by visiting this place. If you have lots of plugins which you depend on, I would advise you to hold the deployment of this upgrade. Wait until version 2.5 has been released and the authors of the plugins have had a chance to revise their code. One good thing about 2.5 is that it hasn’t modified the internals of WordPress too heavily⁽¹⁾.
4. Theme operation has also not been affected. See the point above.

I’d like to thank Matt Mullenweg, Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Santa Maria, Liz Danzico, and the WordPress community for making this release happen.

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^{(1) Matt Mullenweg states that WordPress 2.5 has a redesigned look in order to improve interaction, but that it has not heavily modified the internal structure of the software. “Finally with regards to theme and plugin compatibility, we’ve had no reports of any broken themes in this upgrade, which makes sense because we didn’t really change anything core about themes, just added new optional capabilities like Gravatars. Plugins that work with the admin may require updating to take advantage of the new, cleaner UI in WordPress 2.5.”}