Suggest blog/CMS software?

Discussion in 'Web Design and Development' started by GFLPraxis, Mar 22, 2011.

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  1. GFLPraxis, Mar 22, 2011

    GFLPraxis macrumors 604

    GFLPraxis

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2004
    #1
    I've been looking at starting up a blog for some time. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, with a lot of experience in different faucets of the tech industry. I have enough experience to muck around in the code and figure out what does what and tweak it, but I never actually learned languages like PHP, so I can't write it from scratch. (Pity you can't write a web site in Obj-C xD )

    So...first of all, I'm currently hosted with GoDaddy. I've got another blog hosted with them running Wordpress that seems to run okay...also investigating Movable Type and Drupal, but I have to say, everything seems to load fairly slow on GoDaddy. Not sure if I configured something wrong, but navigating between admin pages takes forever. Not a fan of their support, either. If there is a significantly better host the more experienced would recommend that would be easy to switch to, let me know. I realize GoDaddy's is the McDonalds of web hosts.

    I'd consider hosting my own- when I lived in the Netherlands when I was 13 I hosted an Apache server complete with MySQL and a PHP forum off of my home PC on my 1.5 mbps ADSL just to leanr how, but the performance was pretty gagworthy if you tried to download anything of weight or if more than a few users were connecting. However, I'm on a 40 mbps down, IIRC 5 up fiber connection, so I don't have any faith in it holding up under three-digit-numbers-of-viewers.


    Second, CMS.

    Wordpress, Movable Type, Drupal, other?


    Really, what I would like to do is pretty similar to John Gruber's DaringFireball. I want to make a couple little "snippet" posts a day (post a link and a one or two line comment, probably twitter-length) with maybe a once-daily "article" post that is a couple paragraphs in length.

    Again, I'm fairly new to CMS', and still playing around with them. What's the easiest way to accomplish this? I haven't been able to find any plugins to allow you to have multiple styles of posts.

    Thanks for any assistance.
     
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  2. Consultant, Mar 22, 2011

    Consultant macrumors G5

    Consultant

    Joined:
    Jun 27, 2007
    #2
    Godaddy is bottom of the line. Tried to sign up domain once but can't take their horrible adware site.

    Under few thousand page views per day then try bluehost. It's not bad for its price. Like any shared hosting, don't expect 100% uptime.

    I've moved to VPS in Jan. Now moving to a cloud server with CDN this week. I use wordpress.

    You can install MAMP to test different CMS. DF used to list what he uses and custom plugin (not wordpress). DF doesn't seem to list it now.

    Server speed depends on
    - RAM
    - CPU
    - Bandwidth
    - Caching
    - Code performance
    - CDN
     
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  3. GFLPraxis, Mar 22, 2011
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2011

    GFLPraxis thread starter macrumors 604

    GFLPraxis

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2004
    #3
    I believe DF uses Movable Type.

    Heard anything about Lithium Hosting?

    EDIT: Never mind. Looks like the same guy posting good reviews all over MR, with no one else recommending them. I'll take a look at Bluehost.
     
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  4. dawiyo, Mar 22, 2011

    dawiyo macrumors member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2009
    Location:
    Alexandria, VA
    #4
    I've been using Lithium Hosting for years. I've got a reseller account with them.

    For CMS's, go ahead and try out WordPress, Joomla, etc, but when you're ready to get going with something useful, start to learn Drupal. It's forever changed the way I make websites.
     
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  5. Consultant, Mar 22, 2011

    Consultant macrumors G5

    Consultant

    Joined:
    Jun 27, 2007
    #5
    Oh, if you are in VPS territory, check out vps.net (I wish I found them earlier).


    I am moving to current host's "budget" cloud platform tonight. Didn't realize it needs 2 hours to change server size (sort of useless if server is under load), but will try it out for awhile.
     
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  6. highdough, Mar 22, 2011

    highdough macrumors regular

    Joined:
    Sep 10, 2008
    #6
    What are the major differences between Wordpress and Drupal? I use Wordpress now, but assumed Drupal was pretty much the same thing.
     
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  7. walangij, Mar 23, 2011
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2011

    walangij macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2007
    Location:
    MI
    #7
    Drupal is much more scalable IMO. You can develop some very complex sites quickly. But it's also harder to get it to "look" how you'd like it to without spending some time theming it. Also the learning curve is a little steep. Once you understand how Drupal organizes content it gets easier. I recommend checking out Lullabot on youtube if you're interested. They are an excellent training resource.

    I'd recommend Wordpress for a personal blog, or smaller sites. It also is easier to find themes whereas compared to Drupal. I spend a lot of time developing custom themes in drupal b/c the contributed themes look too "drupal" if that makes sense.

    One cool thing I've noticed though is that it's easier to identify Wordpress sites but Drupal sites aren't as easily identifiable b/c of the prevalence of custom theming.

    I vouch for VPS. They were @ drupalcon in Chicago a couple weeks ago. Great guys too.

    I also would suggest webfaction. They are another excellent developer centric host. And for shared hosting they handle spikes pretty well. Had a spike on an underground college news site when some drastic changes were happening on campus and webfaction handled it very well. If you're interested in webfaction drop me a pm for a referral link. It's also more expensive than some shared hosting , but is pay-as-you go.
     
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  8. GFLPraxis, Mar 23, 2011

    GFLPraxis thread starter macrumors 604

    GFLPraxis

    Joined:
    Mar 17, 2004
    #8
    Playing around with Movable Type 5...why is it impossible to find any themes for it? :confused:
     
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  9. djbressler, Mar 23, 2011

    djbressler macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    May 11, 2006
    #9
    Sounds like you'd benefit from drupal

    Hi,

    Being a tweaked, you may benefit from using Drupal. WordPress is really easy to use, and very powerful. Drupal has steeper learning curve. IMO less plugin maturity than wordpress. Drupal is gaining steam, and there would be good market for your skills.

    I use page.ly for wordpress hosting. It's wordpress only.

    David
     
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  10. JoeG4, Mar 25, 2011

    JoeG4 macrumors 68030

    JoeG4

    Joined:
    Jan 11, 2002
    Location:
    Bay Area, Ca.
    #10
    You may also want to look into Mambo/Joomla - I dunno what the state of them is anymore but they're rarely used, probably because the management interface has a really steep learning curve.

    OTOH, the amount of customizability is nothing short of insane. I remember using Drupal a few years ago, it was great but had a few elements you just couldn't configure in the ways you could mambo/joomla. that may have changed by now :)
     
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