The Search For My Perfect Blogging System

I’ve been blogging for a while now.  Probably since before it was called “blogging” and just “writing random crap on your website”.  And in general I can be a little OCD about figuring out the best system for whatever I am doing, whether it is organizing photos, electronics, lifestyle design, etc.  I really like optimizing my systems (and some time I will explain just what that means on a practical level).

So, before I started getting back in to the swing of blogging I took a look at what would consistitute the best blogging system for me.  (read: not you.)

The primary issue for me was that it be something that was easy — I post in one place, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of interoperability between my various media profiles ( picasa, youtube, etc.) and social networking sites ( facebook, alivenotdead, twitter, etc.).

Lately I’ve been playing around with various CMS platforms, learning their ins and outs (using a few for client projects), and ended up picking WordPress.  Not too much of  shocker, since it is a pretty popular system.  But I’ve found that it allows me to integrate across many platforms with the aforementioned “minimum of fuss”.

So now I’m blogging on my website, narom.net, which feeds to alivenotdead.com and facebook.com (it is a pity that Xanga and MySpace don’t allow blog importing).  I also export a tweet when I blog too.

I use Picasaweb for photos, but I have integration on Wordpress and can link to any image in any of my galleries/ablums through my posting interface, like thus:

And I will be working on youtube integration too, but just have to find the right plugin to fulfill my needs.

As much as I like Joomla for larger sites, I’m very tempted to switch wushuzilla.com over to WordPress too.  However, there are still a few things that Joomla can do which WordPress can’t (or are a bit cumbersome) so for now I’ll keep that site the way it is.

The other thing I like that it is super easy to create new skins for my blog.  It takes me about 30 minutes to design a new one, which is something that I quite enjoy.  Seasonal site skins, anyone?

EDIT: I stuck the picture in there for Patrick’s benefit.  I know that he prefers photos in his blog feed so that it is easy for him to comment.  You’re welcome Pat.

Share and Enjoy: