jmadigan.net

Now with fresh lemon scent

It's a new year, and a new blog. Welcome to Blog a la Madigan, v2.0. I started this project hesitantly, because I'd seen many others jump on the blogwagon and then flop right back off again. I wasn't sure if it was something I'd see as a hobby or as a nuisance. But not only have I enjoyed making it, friends and family have told me how much they've enjoyed reading it. So I took out my spice weasel and kicked it up a notch.

Things may look largely the same (I decided not to muck with the design, since I like it) but there are a few nifty features in this new iteration. The site is now hosted on its own, shorter, and more logical domain by the folks at Verve Hosting. This gives me more storage and bandwidth, plus reporting and administration tools. It also gave me a cgi-bin and PHP support, so large chunks of the site are now powered by Movable Type, a snazzy publishing system for bloggers.

Movable Type is the sexier, saucier starlet relative to the solid, supporting performance of Verve Hosting. The former does a ton of stuff, most of which I won't use, but a few of which you should enjoy:

• The ability to post comments after each blog entry. Try it with this one by clicking on the "Comments" link up top.
• "Permalinks", which provide permanent links in case you want to link to a story that will slip off or has slipped off the front page.
• Automatic blog archiving so that past posts are neatly tucked away by date. See?
• Some efficient, behind-the-scenes administration tools for me.

All in all I'm pretty happy with Movable Type and would recommend it (did I mention it's FREE?). It does some inexplicable things with stylesheets that I'm still trying to iron out, but it was a breeze to install.

Oh, and don't forget to update your bookmarks! The old Blog a la Madigan URL is going to go away. Update! Do it now!