Saturday, December 8, 2007

Making the change... from Blogger to WordPress

It is a big change for me.

I started seriously blogging back in June on Active Rain. In July I picked up Blogger (Blogspot). I wanted an outside platform that would be more configurable. But, everything was fine with Blogger. I changed the theme a bit to better fit with my personality and subject. All was ok.

However, as I delved deeper into what I wanted to accomplish (in regards to my real estate business), I decided that I needed to offer something more than I would be able to offer with a static website. So, I started researching options.

In steps Joomla. Joomla is a content management system. It is kind of a cross between a blog and a website, but as a blog... not so great. I created GarageHomesUSA. This was what I wanted a site to be. it had depth and organization and was very configurable. Most of my blog material found its way there.

Then came the meltdown.

I've chronicled it previously on the blog, but because i selected a version of Joomla that wasn't stable yet, and because my host had me on the same servers as a few years ago, I had to change serveres with my host. I decided as I was doing that, that one of my sites was not really fulfilling a purpose. LaneBailey.com was just kind of there.

In an "aha!" moment, I decided that the blog needed to be there. I could afford to lose that site to bring my blog "in-house" so to speak. And so, I again dived in to do some research. Opting for another open source application, I chose to run WordPress on my domain. Again, it could function almost as a website as it is another CMS (content management system). However, it is a great blog, but less than optimal for a full site.

So, over the last week, I have been running both the Blogger and LaneBailey site parallel to each other. I will continue to do so for a while. After a bit, I plan on just summarizing my posts from LaneBailey to the Blogger platform.

So, if you are my reader...

I'd love for you to visit LaneBailey and hang out in the shop with me.

As always, I'd LOVE your comments and suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you.

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