Back 25+ years ago while I was hosting PM Magazine/Buffalo I ran into a nice young girl woman producer. She made sure I hit my mark and properly intro’d Captain Carrot and Chef Tell.
Obviously she had her act together because her career has really done well and she’s been responsible for some pretty big TV hits and has some Emmy awards to prove it. Recently she and her business partner split and she decided to take me up on an offer I’d made many times over the years–put up a website for her.
I did a little work this weekend and more last night. The site’s not ready to unveil yet but it’s coming along.
This site is based on MovableType, free blogging software (though useful for more than blogging). I use MT because Peter Sachs who installed it also used it! He put in what he knew–and I’ll always be grateful. For my friend’s new site I decided to try WordPress. Again, this is free software, heavily supported by a very active community.
Wow!
The website installed in under five minutes. There was some information to fill into forms to get the program to properly speak with the server, but that was fairly painless. I’m not a neophyte. I know my way around the backend of a webserver. Still, I think anyone could have installed this without too much trouble.
What really impressed me with WordPress was the ease of modifying the look.
Hold on. Let me take a step back. What software like WordPress, MovableType, Joomla, Drupal and other do is separate content from look. I can change how this website looks without messing with my entries. Everything should fall right back into place. For web design that’s power.
I was able to take a template and modify it to fit the look I wanted in just a few minutes. I was astounded how easily I was able to accomplish my goal.
My friend’s website is hosted on a plan that costs her $9.99 a month, includes three domains (geofffox.com would be a domain), unlimited mail addresses and more storage space and bandwidth than she’ll ever use. And since I’m doing my part free, it’s quite a deal.
When I’m done, I’ll post the link. Right now I just want to put out the word, it’s easier than you think.
do you like wordpress enough to migrate away from MT?
You know, I do. However, my concern is for the directory structure of this website. I suspect I’d have to change ALL my webpage addresses. That makes it a non-starter.
you could migrate, then submit a new sitemap to google – wordpress has an excellent sitemap plug-in.
that being said, if MT ain’t broke there’s no reason to fix it.