After comparing the features offered to blogspot blogs and FTP blogs, I discovered that as an FTP blog owner I was missing out on many of the newer features of Blogger such as widgets, AJAX publishing, and paged posts. After this frustrating realization, I started to explore my other options. The two most obvious candidates were WordPress and Movable Type. After googling up a few reviews and comparisons of the two, it seemed that they were fairly equal in terms of features and any lacking features could be supplemented with plugins. In the end I decided on WordPress because it is open source and promised a quick, simple installation.

My main problem with the installation was my insistance on using the terminal FTP program and ignorance on how to upload directory structures. This meant that I ended up creating directories by hand, which seriously extended the upload time. However, I suspect that if I had used a GUI drag ‘n’ drop FTP program, it would have taken the promised 5 minute installation time because apart from the upload, everything was very easy.

So there I was with a brand new WordPress installation with a nice stock layout. I still had half of my winter break left, so I decided to attempt to trick out my new site. Inspiration was my main problem at this point because there are plently of good resources out there on the template structure and tags for WordPress. After discovering many amazing blogs that I could never compete with, I finally came up with this idea. My search for ideas introduced me to new design ideas like XHTML compliance, modularized design, and table-less layouts.

Although this is my first post using WordPress, at this point I am very happy with my decision in reaching this point and look forward to many future posts in this new environment.