Fighting Blogger

In some ways I like Blogger, which is why I've stayed. However, the Blogger engine does not permit much freedom in customizing the design and fails to support subcategories. What I want are the following, in order of importance:

1. Subcategories extending to a minimum of two levels, although more would be better. Ten levels of subcategories would be optimal. A blog without categories is like a book without a table of contents.

2. A more robust Comment feature, one that does not drop comments by accident without any explanation.

3. Useful gadgets for the blog. Most of the add-ons are annoying gimmicky substitutes for content that the writer should instead provide.

3. The ability to customize the header in any way, shape, or form.

4. The ability to customize the appearance of the rest of the blog.

5. Better templates.

6. The ability to delete an article while editing, before publishing. Right now, Blogger stores everything, whether the article is empty or not.

I am considering moving over to Wordpress. The cost in terms of broken links would not be all that high. The only downside as I see it is lack of advertising support, but I can afford five bucks for sure.

If I do make the move, never fear. My last message here will link to the new site.

I sure am glad I mowed the blog last week. There won't be as much moving to do. I anticipate the move taking a couple of hours. But first, I need to examine Wordpress and make sure the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Reports of security vulnerabilities in Wordpress are quite alarming. Perhaps that explains why somebody out there is hitting my router with port-scans. Yes, I do have a Firewall. D'oh!

As for LiveJournal, that is now owned by a Russian company. Sorry, Russian readers, but I do not have a high overall opinion of Russian democracy, right at the moment. The fact that they laid off a bunch of programmers in San Francisco and moved the jobs over to Russia does not sit well with me, either. It is just another thorn in the side of our ailing country. San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world. Don't mess with SF.

As for Myspace, it is owned by Murdoch, and no more need be said on that score. Windows Live Spaces may be worth considering. I'm not that much of a Microsoft h8r; after all, I use Windows XP. They probably have the security angle covered. I'll just bet they don't bother with categories (#1 on the list above) or for that matter any other innovation. A Microsoft solution aims for a solid and sound imitation of the other players in the market without getting ahead of them. Reports of browser incompatibility are not too surprising. Microsoft still expects everyone to use IE. More troublesome for me is that Microsoft censors the word "democracy" in China.