During my adventures to find a replacement for WordPress, I tried out a few different blogging packages.
Please note I was trying to find blogging software with the path of least resistance. This roundup is very critical for my needs/wants. I'm know they're all fine (if you can get them to install) if you're starting a new blog, but porting from one system to another is never fun, even less so when the system has serious platform changes that include the database!
dasBlog
Installed fine, worked perfectly, uses XML instead of SQL (no dramas there), the only 'importer' for it was a BlogML importer. Fine, install BlogML exporter to Wordpress, exported fine and then….dasBlog BlogML importer failed to run.
It was pretty damn fast, I'll give it that. It comes with a fair few different themes, which is always nice, but the admin panel was certainly not overly friendly. I don't really want to write my own importer for it, so I decided not to use it.
BlogEngine.NET
Defaults to XML, but does have SQL capabilities, but failed to 'run' properly. Couldn't get it running (either errors with the Web.Config, or with the software, depending on what I changed).
Apparently BlogEngine.NET is really nice, but I didn't want to have to fight the software just so I could trial it!
Later on I decided to install it locally, to see what I could get going. It's BlogML importer did a much better job than the others (that is, it actually imported most of my blog posts and maintained most formatting) - but it still wasn't flawless. This may be because of how Wordpress exported BlogML, or the BlogML definition, I'm not sure but the problems with it are/were:
- Posts from 2006 were dropped.
- "pages" get converted to blog posts
- "attachments", that is, something I've uploaded through Wordpress or Live Writer get converted to posts (ie, title = img-2786.jpg, with no post content)
- A few blog post titles were totally fubar'd
- Because I'm now using tags rather than categories, BlogEngine didn't pick up any imported categories/tags.. argh!
SubText
Unlike the others, SubText requires a MSSQL database. After I got over modifying the ConnectionString (I guess I can't blame them for my stupidity), things appear to be good.
SubText has Import/Export to/from BlogML baked into it, which is definitely a plus. Of course, it failing to import was not exactly a good sign. I reuploaded the DLL, and it managed to process 16 of my blog posts…but still failed. Even the 16 it processed weren't of any use to me, the formatting was destroyed, and it split one post into three!
I don't even want to describe GraffitiCMS' horrible job of install instructions.
From trying all of these different projects, its hard to conclude anything but ASP.NET sucks as a blogging platform. Now, we know that ASP.NET is more than fine for any webapp, be it blog or ecommerce, but the current open source or free blog software for ASP.NET sucks. While this might be a tad unfair, there is at least one or more component in each of the four I tried that sucked all the fun out of blogging. Maybe because of my LAMP background, I just expect things to 'work' when you upload them…
I'm seriously considering writing my own (MahBlog?), but adding support for trackbacks, pingpacks, the metablog API (I suppose if it does have full metablog API/WLM support, it doesn't need to have a web interface to post…hrm…), as well as being able to import WordPress, 'clean' URL's, etc, just doesn't sound like an overly fun thing to just 'whip up'.
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If Vista's Media Centre isn't picking up your random video files such as MKV, TS, MP4, etc but you've already got the codecs installed, a small registry patch can fix this by changing the PerceivedType to video.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.file-extension]
"PerceivedType"="video"
(Emphasis is what you need to change for your desired extension)
Copy the above text (modified of course), into a text file, save as .REG, double click on the REG file, and restart VMC. All done!
For me, I needed MP4 and TS, so [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ts] and [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4]
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I had planned to migrate over to xHostSolutions as soon as possible, I just had to make sure that the migration would be transparent with WordPress acting the same on both the old and new host. Wordpress is designed to run in a LAMP environment, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume 90%+ of WordPress installs/users are run that way. If you want to run it on IIS, things start to go down hill quickly.
For a start, there is little/no documentation on getting "clean" url's working using Permalinks. For me, running ISAPI_REWRITE, I was able to (mostly) copy and paste the contents of my .htaccess file into the http.ini.
RewriteEngine on
RewriteBase /blog/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule (.*) /blog/index.php/$1 [L]
In WordPress' configuration, I chose year/month/day/title for the Permalink type:
/index.php/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/
Although it has index.php in it, if you removed the index.php in a browser it worked fine. Take it out of the WordPress config? It all dies.
Oh well, that's all fixed, I better navigate around my site to make sure things work…oh…none of the "pages" (as in, what WordPress calls a page - something different from a blog post) work. The server returns
CGI Error
The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.
I stumbled across a post on the WordPress support forums, which (apparently) has a fix for the 2.3x versions of WordPress, but not v2.5+.
Then today there comes Jeff Atwood's post today about the CPU usage of WordPress under IIS(v7, which runs PHP faster).
The conclusions I've reached are
- If I want a current version of WordPress, use a LAMP host,
- If I want to have an IIS host, use either another PHP based or ASP.NET based Blog.
I've got BlogEngine.NET (which I've been having trouble installing; their wiki has been offline for awhile too, although now seems to be online), GraffitiCMS, (and in the PHP/Perl corner) TextPattern, MovableType, ExpressionEngine to give a try I guess. Argh!
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HTC p3600i, running Windows Mobile 6 (Pro?). Picked it up yesterday at the local Three store, moving away from prepaid to a cap.
Now to get a Twitter client onto it…
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Nokia's latest advertising for the N-Gage platform comes in the form of a stop-motion video…and a stop motion video game. The loading screen is BreakOut, watch the video and about half way in, you get to play BreakOut with the main character of the video as the ball!
Whether or not you like Nokia or N-Gage, this ad/site is freaking cool.
via JJProjects
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Shane Morris has just posted an exciting looking competition to make your own Silverlight Music Video to "Step Back" by Sydney/NY musician Matt Broadfoot.
First prize:
- A Silverlight skateboard!!!
- A ticket to Remix 08 Australia Event in either Melbourne or Sydney
Second prize:
- A generation 1 Microsoft Zune® Scotty had lying around – which will be lovely once upgraded to the latest software :-)
- A ticket to Remix 08 Australia Event in either Melbourne or Sydney
Third prize:
- A Microsoft Wireless Presenter Mouse
- A ticket to Remix 08 Australia Event in either Melbourne or Sydney
There is a very limited number of those Silverlight Skateboards in the world, would be very cool to win one.
Competition closes at 10am (Sydney time), Monday, May 12, 2008. Only a couple of weeks, so get cracking!
Terms and conditions
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TweetSaver has slowly been creeping into the CodePlex project for MahTweets over the last week or so, and now the first alpha release of it is live!
What is TweetSaver?
- Twitter + Screensaver
- Uses WCF to connect to MahTweets - you can have it on multiple machines with no extra API usage!
- Uses WPF for display
- Name is by Will, so blame him
It uses MahTweets (requires MahTweets "Alpha 3" and up - Alpha 3 is designated by Change Sets 4309 or higher) and WCF for communication (TCP endpoint). Just like MahTweets, TweetSaver will get tweets in real time as MahTweets pushes out the tweets via WCF, which means no more Twitter API calls are made!
The really cool part of this would be if you had one MahTweets 'server' (for lack of a better word), and TweetSaver on an entire office of computers. One connection/set of API calls could do an entire office (of…your twitter feed). If you went to any of the Australian Heroes Happens Here events, you'd have noticed they had lots of twitter screens setup, all logged into the Twitter webpage - this would get around having each one logged in, and look prettier ;)
Requirements
- .NET 3.0
- Twitter account
- Jabber (G-Talk will do) account preconfigured for IM with Twitter
- For TweetSaver to run correctly, MahTweets must be open
Installation
- Download
- Extract
- Run MahTweets, click allow to the Windows Firewall request (if you want TweetSaver to work) and configure MahTweets
- Right click on TweetSav.scr, and select 'Install' - no configuration is needed unless you want to try it out over a network
Disclaimer
You're downloading this of your own free will, so we take no responsibility if your computer crashes, hard drive self formats, you develop a drinking problem, and so on and so forth. While it is an "alpha" release, at worst, it should either crash itself or hog resources - nothing "deadly".
Download the release-build of changeset 4309
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Live Writer is easy to use/setup, and (I believe) lets me produce better blog posts by cutting out the hassle of wrestling with formatting, picture placement, picture effects, uploading, and so on that is often associated with web-based editors. As good as TinyMCE is, it just doesn't cut it compared to a 'fat/rich' desktop client (particularly when you start throwing plugins in!)
That being said, there was one feature that was making me lean towards heading all online - saving drafts to my blog so that I can edit posts no matter where I am, with either Live Writer or with Wordpress' Editor. As it turns out, however, the clever Live Writer team have already included that functionality, I was just too engrossed in producing wonderful blog posts (I'll use that as my excuse instead of just saying "because I was too stupid to look"), but Will was kind enough to point it out to me.
To save online, hit "Post Draft…"
And to retrieve blogs stored online to edit, hit Open, navigate to your Blog and pick whichever post/draft you want to edit
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While the journey was tough, and we lost some of our exploration party along the way, finally, our efforts have proved not to be in vain, and the search for the new host is over! The golden glow floods the room, as we open the treasure chest to claim our prize…xHostSolutions (on the Windows US Helm xValue plan). Well, that's the end of my short career as Indianna Jones I think. The short list was NetLogistics, Web24, discountasp, Mosso, and xhostsolutions.
My past has been tattered with hosting vessels barely able to keep their servers afloat, requiring the vast hordes known as the Oversold to bucket water out of the ship. I'll nary forget my time with Unlimited-Space, SolidInternet* or Dreamhost. The promise of a mound of treasure is not quiet as good as the regular funds that stream from SLA's. My stint as Guybrush Threepwood should end there.
*To their credit SI didn't oversell (well, not that degraded the service), they were just hopeless.
Why leave Dreamhost?
Dreamhost had a lot of potential, their features were good, speeds were acceptable, they weren't "smalltime" with many servers and a decent arrangement, but they failed on just one key thing….stability. While you pay more for hosts with a SLA, it at least encourages them to keep their servers going. Over the past few weeks, my mail has been up and down, my site has fluctuated from timing out to having the user folders cleaned out to actually working!
On the flip side, I've also been with NetLogistics in the past, and while they had plans that suited my needs, they were a bit pricey (but this is actually reflected in quality of service/etc) on my relatively low budget.
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (about xHostSolutions)?
The Good:
- SmarterMail rocks. If you've ever had any form of shared webhosting, you'll know that SquirrelMail, Horde, Imp and most of the others all suck for webmail.
SmarterMail's web interface, on the other hand, performs fast, handles HTML properly, and is very similar to Outlook.
- When trying to figure out if this was the account for me, I sent a few emails which were all answered within half an hour. Some of these were at 11pm!
- I suppose this is a "good". HELM, the web panel chosen by xHostSolutions, is very responsive compared to CPanel or Plesk. The interface is uglier than the others (subjective), but it works very fast. Plesk, on a much faster host, often would take up to five minutes to just login, let alone perform other operations!
- Despite my initial fears, Wordpress works, and it works great. I tested by installing WP 2.5, imported all my blog posts fine
- Url Rewriting (Helicon Tech ISAPI_Rewrite v3) works just like MOD_REWRITE in Apache, is installed through HELM and once you punch in the correct rules, works perfectly with Wordpress.
The Bad:
- As good as SmarterMail is the version provided is "only" SmarterMail 4.x Pro, not Enterprise which has proper Outlook syncing.
- Limited databases (not too bad to be honest, just need to prefix tables)
- Only MySQL(4/5) and MSSQL 2000 on the US server. I have been told 2005 will be offered in a month or two however.
- No .NET 3/3.5 support (yet?)
Url Rewriting (through ISAPI) won't install through HELM. Major bummer. They fixed it within 30mins of me sending the support ticket!
The Ugly:
- Although not their fault, the time between submitting an application and having my account activated was horrible.
This was their payment gateways fault - Paymate. They don't seem to operate on weekends, so I had to wait till Monday (submitted late Friday night) before Paymate processed the order, and then handed that to xHost
- Ping times are higher than Dreamhosts unfortunately.
At this rate, I hope to migrate my blog over by the end of next week, but we'll see how things go.
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My HTPC how has Bluray/HD-DVD playback integrated into it, rather than using the external (and noisy-ish) Xbox HD-DVD drive!
I'm disappointed that there is still no great solution for playing Bluray/HD-DVD discs in Windows Media Centre though. To play with PowerDVD installed, you must launch an external program, and responds to the remote commands very poorly. Arcsoft offer a better product for this purpose in their TotalMedia Theatre, but it still launches an external program! What I want is a HD/BluRay decoder, that'll plugin just like DVD's do - but that seems to be awhile away unfortunately.
Despite some peoples fears, Intel's G31 chipset plays back HD-DVD's and BluRay discs just fine (well, so long as you have the right codecs and don't let hardware accelerate it at all)!
If I was building again, would I go for the AMD or Intel versions of my HTPC? No!
How does no answer that question? Since building these HTPC's, for AMD the 780g chipset has come out, and for Intel, the G45 (not G43 or G41, which don't have AVC/VC1 acceleration) are making their way out. The chipsets have superior graphics capabilities. The 780g, for example, I'd actually enable hardware acceleration on, although the jury is out on G45 until we see cheaper boards coming out with it.
So why would I get something different if what I works has? It'd only be if I was starting from scratch - while my HTPC is perfectly capable, those are more capable for down the track…who knows…2160p may only be a few years away
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Installed fine, worked perfectly, uses XML instead of SQL (no dramas there), the only 'importer' for it was a BlogML importer. Fine, install BlogML exporter to Wordpress, exported fine and then….dasBlog BlogML importer failed to run.
Defaults to XML, but does have SQL capabilities, but failed to 'run' properly. Couldn't get it running (either errors with the Web.Config, or with the software, depending on what I changed).
Unlike the others, SubText requires a MSSQL database. After I got over modifying the ConnectionString (I guess I can't blame them for my stupidity), things appear to be good.