Goodbye, FeedBlitz!

I’ve recently completed the process of moving all subscribers to my new blog. I expect its new web-based email subscription system will work better.

  • All emails from me will say they are from MichaelPrewitt.com, not from FeedBlitz.
  • Replies to emails will be delivered to me, and not to some stranger!
  • It is no longer necessary to go through another third party to add comments to a blog post. There is also support for personal avatars; initially Gravatars are enabled (when you comment with the email address associated with a Gravatar), and later I plan to add user profiles for those who want them.

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R.I.P. Shawneelink Email Address!

Occasionally I learn that someone has been trying to contact me through my old Shawneelink email address. Unfortunately sending friendly messages, your cousin’s baby pictures, forwarded spam, love letters, and YouTube links to that address is about as effective as printing them out, stuffing them in an old paper envelope, and burning it. To put it simply, that address is no more.

shawneelinkaddress

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Changes and Updates

For some reason my last several posts did not seem to trigger email updates for everyone. This message is partially intended to let you know there are several new items online, including notes from my holiday vacation and GYC.

Additionally, I have added a new category to my blog, “Books and Music.” This category simply summarizes the book and music reviews I occasionally post. Of course they are also included in the main blog; this is just a more convenient way to access them. Formerly they were part of the “Cool Stuff” category. At the moment there are only a few reviews, but I intend to add more.

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Blogging Software

While I like the program I’ve used to redesign and maintain this site (RapidWeaver), it is starting to become a bit cumbersome, something I thought might eventually happen from the get-go. RapidWeaver uploads static pages only — no dynamic web apps involved — and consequently at least once a month it is necessary to re-upload the entire collection of blog pages to keep their indexes current. After nearly eight months, this is becoming a little taxing on my dial-up connection (although it still usually takes less than five minutes to complete). Besides the upload burden, it is not possible to maintain the blog from multiple computers, due to the way RapidWeaver works (everything needs to be managed from a single computer). I would really like to break free of that.

At the moment WordPress seems one of the better options. I don’t want a remote hosted blogging service (like Blogger), nor do I want a gargantuan content management system (like Drupal). I just want something simple and easy to use, with a pretty GUI, that I can host on my own site, and that is preferably free, open source, standards compliant, and actively developed. There are a few other interesting options besides WordPress, but I’ve heard so many good things about that one that I’m leaning heavily towards it.