Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

The renowned MovableType hacker, Jennifer of ScriptyGoddess, made the switch to WordPress a while back. This bodes well for WordPress tweaks and WordPress plugins. (Yes, WordPress does support plugins to extend its functionality)

Related:

1. WordPress plugins.
2. ScriptyGoddess’ post on making the switch
3. Kartooner: The Move to WordPress
4. The publisher of Teach Yourself Movable Type in 24 Hours makes the switch to WordPress.

As many of you know, I’ve switched from blogging with MovableType (a perl-based application) to WordPress (a php-based application). Many of the features are equivalent and they both do about the same kind of thing. The main incentive for my switch to WordPress is that I was annoyed by MovableType’s new licensing scheme. When you dig deeper there are other, more specific, reasons why you might want to make the switch. Here is one person’s good review of the pros and cons of each package:

Installation (10 points)
Movable Type’s installation is fairly annoying, as installations go. Not only did I have to change all sorts of config variables by hand before installing, I had to figure out the syntax for said variables, which wasn’t immediately obvious (the criteria for “immediately obvious” being whether or not I have to resort to documentation). Then, I had to CHMOD all sorts of files, thanks to MT’s Perl roots. Not to mention running mt-check.cgi to look for a dozen Perl modules… phew. WordPress’ installation is almost fiendishly simple. Run a script to set the database config, run another to install, and be entertained by silly messages along the way. If they would combine the two scripts, it would be nicer, but still— it doesn’t get much easier than this.

Winner: WordPress

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There is an exploit for Internet Explorer out right now where any website can install anything it wants onto your computer. While visiting websites you may notice your virus scanner going off as a website tries to install a virus-laden dll. Until IE gets its security flaws fixed you might want to check out the mozilla-based browser, Firefox.

Short feature list:

1. Small size: 4.7MB
2. No need to install just run from wherever you have it.
3. Tabbed browsing. Run multiple pages within the same browser instance so you don’t fill up your task bar while visiting websites.
4. Built in pop-up blocker.

My dad left his computer with me this week since he’s been having a lot of trouble with it. His master boot record had two entries, one of which would not load windows and would just crash at the command line. In other words, during load the prompt would ask which of two install of Windows to load. Unfortunately, this was the default entry and with a USB keyboard, since USB keyboards will often not power up and work until Windows is loaded, he could not select the correct boot record. So, in researching this issue I learned a new thing that you too may benefit from: necessary entries from the boot record or boot.ini. One problem down and a few more to go.

After this, I loaded up and ran Ad-Aware 6.0 with its updated reference files to locate and remove any spyware. I found hundreds of bot programs and crap clogging his system. The “Program Files” directory was loaded with virus exe’s. This is a good thing to run every so often if you’re on a Windows machine.

I wanted to go over a few thoughts I had on Movable Type as well as respond to Anil’s comments:

1. Well, there’s new stuff from 2.64 to 3.0, and we’ll have a bunch more new features in the general release that’s a free upgrade for 3.0 users. So new stuff is definitely something you can still have on MT, particularly if you play with some of the plugins at mt-plugins.org.

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I was surprised to see such a quick and thorough response from Anil Dash about my previous ranty post about MovableType’s plans. I don’t have any time right now to write further, just suffice to say that I am impressed by his communication here and it makes me think better of everyone involved at SixApart because I know they are trying sincerely to address user concerns, not just here. Thank you especially Anil. That being said here is what he had to say to my points:
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I’m thinking of switching from Movable Type. Why? Well, a couple reasons, purely personal.

1. I like to try new things, and I’d like to extend this to blogging software and see what else is out there.
2. The Ben–Mena–SFO–MT-cutesy-hipness annoys me, maybe simply because I’m not a part of it, but it annoys me nevertheless. I’m contrary like that. It reminds me of having to like the popular kids in school.
3. MT 3.0’s new fee structure is too high. I think it represents San Francisco prices for a non-San Francisco world. Add to this the fact that MT is popular and successful because it was free and because people were encouraged by its cost and accessibility to use it. MT is a great product. Do I like it enough to want to shell out 70$-100$ for it? No. They do have a free personal version, but their terms limit how it is used, even for individuals, and who knows how long even this accomodation will last. I am not a fan of limits put in place simply to pad their bottom line. Should people pay for MT at all? Well, it is arguable. You should certainly support MT if you want to and appreciate it, however should you extend that same sense of appreciation to wanting to help build their company?
   
   I think they should have adopted a different strategy: build out Typepad‘s services and subscriptions slowly while developing an enterprise level edition of MT that is different from the core popular product. This is not the case now. Keep MT free for sites without advertising revenue. Commercial sites should encouraged to upgrade to the enterprise level product which could natively support ad banners, etc. It seems like they wanted to start making some money right away and were willing to lose users in the process. That is a bad way to do business. Instead of restricting current features of MT to encourage upgrading to a paid license, restrict only newer features and newer versions. At the same time, allow any bugs in the older free versions to be patched for free. Users should not be forced to upgrade to a paid license to benefit from bug fixes. That being said, none of the restrictions in the personal versions are hard-coded, so you could violate the personal license and have more than one author, but then you would be in violation of the license.

4. Oh yeah, WordPress is open source, which means it essentially belongs in the public domain.
5. Here are some rather extensive technical reasons to switch to WordPress, the likely candidate of the moment.