Jan 19, 2008

Η απορια της εblogημενης





Παρατηρησα κανοντας μπλογκοβολτες οτι πολλοι bloggers μεταφερονται απο το blogger.com στο Wordpress.com και απορουσα γιατι. Μεχρι που εφιαξα ενα λογαριασμο στο Wordpress και αφου μου βγηκε το λαδι να βρω πως λειτουργει, το εβαλα στην ακρη για καποια αλλη φορα (μ'αρεσει να πειραματιζομαι). Μετα ψαχνοντας, βρηκα σε αυτο το λινκ το παρακατω κειμενο και το μεταφερω αυτουσιο εδω.

Προσωπικα μαλλο εχω συνιθισει το blogger.com και τα κανω πια ολα αυτοματα. Μου αρεσει το γεγονος οτι μπορω να επεμβαινω στα χρωματα και στο ντηζαιν. Ενα αρνητικο που εχω παρατηρησει ειναι οτι πολλες φορες φωτογραφιες που ανεβαζω απο τον κομπιουτερ μου πολλες φορες εξαφανιζονται και χρειαζεται να τις ξαναανεβασω. Δε τοψαξα ποτε αλλα μου εχει τυχει 5-6 φορες ηδη και μαλιστα δυο φορες προσφατα μεσα σε μια εβδομαδα.

Παρ ολα αυτα εδω θα μεινω και ελπιζω να βελτιωνεται συνεχεια.

Αυτα και πολλα μπλογκοφιλια!

Στην ταβολα μαγειρεψαμε μυδια



Advantages and disadvantages are relative terms. So, here what I call as advantages or disadvantages are purely from my own point of view…
# Firstly the reason I am here. Wordpress.com supports categories, blogger.com does not.
# If you like to do a lot of experimentation with your template, blogger.com gives a direct access to your template, Wordpress.com doesnot. With blogger.com you can have your own template, with Wordpress.com you can not. The reason apparently are realted to security concerns. However, the other side of the story is that whatever modifications are possible at Wordpress.com, they are a lot cleaner and you do not have to redo it all over again, simply because you decided to change your template (ask me!). And a lot of additions, deletions in the sidebar are still possible. Creating links in the sidebar, for example. You can simply define the category and add links to them. You won’t have to redo it with a change in template. While with Blogger.com, you must manually change the template code with html and then redo it with a template change. Any customization of blogger.com template requires some minimal knowledge of HTML. Wordpress.com provides nice interface. But if you just want the control over HTML of your blog, well go for blogger.com!
# The idea of pages (posts not shown in the usual choronological order) is absent at blogger.com. At wordpress.com, they provide a way to maintain some ’static’ sort of pages, which you may want.
# There are no “File Upload” features in Blogger.com, which is there at Wordpress.com.
# You can password protect a post in Wordpress.com, not so at blogger.com
# Multi-user capabilities at blogger.com is very advanced. I am still not quite sure, Wordpress.com supports it. There are some talks about “Wordpress MU”, but how are you supposed to add users? Am not sure. This, however, is not likely to remain a disadvantage for long.
# The facility of usign raw HTML in the basic HTML editor (not the WYSIWYG editor) selectively was something I loved at blogger.com. The raw HTML editor is too raw at Wordpress.com!
# As of now, I do not think that multiple blogs per person is supported on Wordpress.com, which is a very stable feature of blogger.com.
# Blogger.com does not give option in terms of your permanent link structure. But it sanitizes your non-english titles very well and you do not see those weird, long URLs there. Wordpress.com should be able to give me flexibility to use post-ids. But it, still, is not there.
# Because of default “Justified” text, the rendering of Hindi characters has been poor here at Wordpress.com. For the post body, I could take care of it, but left justifying it. But can not do that with the titles and titles are still rendered in a rather weird fashion. And that reminds me, at blogger.com, you can use Raw HTML in the Titles too, if you wish so.
# Rendering the smileys as images in something blogger.com does not support, Wordpress.com does.
# There are these features “Optional Excerpt” and “Custom Fields” in Wordpress.com editor. Have not used them yet and am not sure what and how useful they are. Any experienced wordpress users? Diwaker? :)
# Features like “Recover Post” are not there at Wordpress.com, I guess. But of course this is most likely to be important only if you have a system without a UPS and you are also likely to face power cuts :) (Yeah, yeah - ask me again!)
# The interface at Wordpress.com is good and bad. It does offer lots of features associated with wordpress software. But as a web-based service, I often end up looking for a “Help” or “FAQ” link and find it missing!! Of course, there are these blogs listed on the dashboard as “Top Blogs”, which do provide you with lot of information. But they are too technical to be grasped by normal mortals and not quite like a “Help” or “FAQ” page.
# The Wordpress.com homepage has no information whatsoever about the site. What are their privacy policies? What about the copyright of all the stuff that I am posting on their site and resides on their servers? It appears more like a site made for the geeks, made by the geeks. May be that was the purpose in the first place (but there is no way to know from the website!). For a normal user, Blogger.com presents a much assuring homepage, with enough information.
# Search of Wordpress.com is cool. That at Blogger.com was pathetic earlier. With Google Blogsearch coming into picture, however, that disadvantage for blogger.com is completely lost! :)
# The system for spam comment filtering has recently been introduced at blogger.com and is limited to word verification. Wordpress.com provides advanced capabilities like requiring approval before comment appears and tests for other symptoms like several hyperlinks, certain words etc. Have not used them. So, can not comment on their usefulness, but it appears to be a more advanced way of dealing with comment spam. And yeah, if you have had some unwanted people, making idiotic comments (ask me!), approval of comments is something you would want to turn on. There is also an option of letting those whose comments have been approved once, to post freely. Thus, you can take care of your regular sane readers.
# Areas to manage post is also a negative with blogger. You can not pick up a particular time period whose posts you want to view. You are forced to see a reverse chronological order of posts. If you want to retreive some really old posts, when the number of posts in your blog is large, it’s nightmarish to wait for your posts to load.
# There is no inbuilt site tracking mechanism in Blogger.com. You have to rely on external counters. Wordpress.com provides a fairly detailed one. However, I wish they would show the IP information too, the way they show it in comments. This would help analyze exactly where from visitors are coming.
# Finally Wordpress.com is under experimentation. If you do not like to see little surprising changes and little messing up here and there on a daily basis, you would want to wait for sometime before trying to shift. Blogger.com is stable and cool that way :)

These are all I can think of right now. Might update it, if there are queries or if something else comes to my mind.

No comments: