Best blogging software?

[Clinton MacDonald]

Mr. longman:

Longman, Bill wrote:
> The folks at Six Apart make Movable Type, what I use for
> my home blog, and they also have a service to which you
> can subscribe.

I have heard very good things about Movable Type. I will look into their 
service. I want something I can set up in a few minutes, create some 
users and passwords, then forget about it. Movable Type, Blogger.com or 
Xanga.com might fill the bill (Xanga.com seems to be a bit of a teenage 
dating-diary-type site, but one of my students swears by it).

> I like MT and there are lots of addons for it. It's got a
> nice user interface and it's easy to upload files, etc.
> You would run that on your server, wherever that might
> be. Mine's sitting under the desk in my office and
> getting my wife upset because it's got "too many cords".

When I "grow up" in this blog thang, I will likely move to Movable Type, 
Zope, or something similar. I am not smart enough to roll my own, so 
that is not an option.

> Then, of course, there's the wikis. Too many to mention
> but they are far more efficient in several ways. The
> administrative overhead is a bit less but the user
> efficiency is far greater. You edit text on a web site
> using your browser. But I know you've gotten your feet
> nice and wet in that arena, Clint.

My feet are wet, for sure! :-)

Honestly, I quite like the Snip-Snap markup language that we use on the 
YDL FAQ Web pages. I hope there is something similar for whatever 
blogging solution I end up with. I don't think I need quite so a lot of 
sophistication for this project, however. I talked to my lab folks about 
it at lunch today, and the wiki option was mentioned. However, I like 
the relative permanence of the Web log paradigm for this particular use. 
I want this blog to be an ongoing record of our discovery process, and I 
don't want the temptation of going back and editing for posterity. So 
far as I know, no one has documented the process of scientific 
discovery, at least the way it occurs in real time, and I think I have 
an opportunity to do something new here.

> One of the other options I might suggest is a bulletin
> board/forum.

We discussed that, too. It quickly became clear that I would be the 
major (perhaps only) contributor, and everyone else would contribute 
comments, at most. That's fine, since I think that it would help if the 
blog had a single voice for the most part (and since I am the boss, I 
get to be the voice!).

Thanks!

Best wishes,
Clint

-- 
Dr. Clinton C. MacDonald | <mailto:clint DOT macdonald AT sbcglobal DOT net>