Dave asks for a comparison between Manila and Blogger. Not a subject to be taken lightly for me. To start, here are some screenshots of the editing environments(kinda big): Manila Bump Blogger Editorial Interface Existing Desktop Editing Enviroment

First, where I think they are the same. Both provide a Web based editorial environment from which to update your site. Both allow you to do this within an HTML framework of your own choosing. Blogger allows you to edit and upload regardless of where you are and where your site is hosted. Manila, today, is strictly limited to editing pages that are on a Manila server, but you can do that from any Web connection just like Blogger. I’m sure that Userland plans to add the ability to use Manila to update sites served on non-Manila servers from static HTML, or even possibly other types of dynamically served environments. Both editing environments are compelling, but Manila’s supports as many pages as you create, where Blogger is focused primarily on pages that contain Weblog entries. This ends up meaning that Manila has much wider reaching applications and can be used for every page of a site rather than just the actual Welog page. The entry interface on blogger is seperate from the actual page of content you are posting(see screen shot above.), and I think that it makes it a more friendly interface for the daily entries that it is focused on. Both environments support multiple author sites.(Which I won’t be using, but others might want to know about.)

The editorial environment on Blogger 2.0 is also more mature.(Thus the 2.0 in its name.) It features a search engine that allows you to pull up your entires with certain strings in them. When I have two hundred daily entries in this new site, it would be really useful to have this feature. Manila provides the same functionality, assuming that you have the search engine turned on and indexing your site. Blogger also allows you to preview and then edit your posting before actually publishing it to the site. I would like to see more customization of the editorial environment in both apps. I would like to have one place as a site editor with all of my links to frequently visited sites and the edit interface for the site. This is possible with Manila through some template customization, but I haven’t gotten to that stage yet.

My recommendation right now is determined by your situation. If you have an existing Weblog type site and already have a hosting environment and space, you’re better off using Blogger. It will take far less reworking to get things up and running, and you won’t have to sacrifice any other server side stuff you currently use such as PERL, Cold Fusion etc.. If you don’t have these things, the space on Userland’s Manila server offers you a chance to set things up from scratch and benefit from Userland’s ongoing improvement of their offering. If you have your own server box, you can buy Frontier and set up your own Manila framework for your self and others.(I have a retired desktop machine serving 9 sites) It’s worth mentioning that Userland has been improving their software on an almost daily basis. I have my copy of Frontier automatically update itself over the Internet every night, and those new features will appear in the interface seemingly out of nowhere. I love that.

Now, my dilemma. I like both environment’s, but I have more content on my site than just the Weblog entries, and I have some plans to add to that content so I like the fact that Manila offers me the full site editing functionality. I’m not currently using anything server side with my site, so that’s not an issue. Bump has been hosted by Mindspring since before I even had the domain name, and the hosting includes mail and dns. In order for me to move Bump to Manila, I’ll either have to bite the bullet and build that stuff for my Manila server or continue to pay Mindspring for the space without actually using it. Another issue that I haven’t touched on are my legacy Weblog entries. There is no easy way to move the two years of entries that I already have into either system’s framework. I could do this with Manila by doing it by hand in the Guest Database framework that Manila is built from, but the amount of labor that would take seems pretty monumental. So I remain undecided, but leaning towards using Manila.

Comments, Corrections, rebukes? Email me

I think the last three weeks constitue the longest gap in Bump’s almost two year history.(I will hit two years on November 7th.)

Some good reasons for the gap. I switched jobs, and I now work at Arthouse . It’s a great, young company. I work with, among a really talented group of people, Jack over at Saturn. My next reason was a trip out of the country. I visited St. Martin for ten days just after Hurricane Jose blessed it’s shores with 24 inches of rain. Even though it wasn’t the perfect vacation I had planned, it was good to disconnect myself for a time. I’m now slowly returning myself to my normal schedule, surfing and posting.

Dave seems to be posting more content to Scripting News on a daily basis than he has as long as I can remember. It’s an indication that there is a lot going on in the Weblog community and in Frontier development. I welcome it, but it’s taking me forever to get through all the days I missed while I was away.

Sony launched Trivial Pursuit on the Web this week. I used to love playing the board version. Too bad I don’t have enough free time right now to explore the Web version more.

On October 5th, DMOZ.org passed the million site mark.

The Beastie Boys are releasing an anthology named The Sounds of Science on November 23rd. You can also build your own two disk anthology and choose from 150 songs at this site . Ever notice that they don’t ever sell their music for television commercials?

I read the newest issue of Discover Magazine on the plane on the way back to the U.S. The cover story was a terribly scary story about Mt. Ranier’s inevitable eruption and the destruction in the greater Seattle area that would follow it. I didn’t know there were magazines still so afraid they didn’t post their whole stories to their Web site, but Discover doesn’t. Here’s a link to the one paragraph they do have up.

It appears from the light rebuttal/clarification in today’s Hear Ye! that I misunderstood/overreacted to what was written. It’s worth mentioning that I do like the site, and I went back and read several months of the archives. We actually seem to have a lot in common interest wise.(With the exception of the platform thing of course.) I have been taking myself a bit too seriously recently. Well, it happens, and a wake up call isn’t a bad thing. As a result, I’m endeavoring to check out more pages in the Everything/Nothing set this weekend. Aside from the name difference from the “Weblog” group, there doesn’t seem to be that huge a difference in the type of sites that populate the community.

It’s funny though, because he actually wrote about much the same topic in relation to Linux zealots on March 7th. It’s the same attitude that he is talking about and that he is frustrated by. Even if he didn’t have that attitude in his original post, there’s no shortage of it on the Net.

Rafe over at RC3.org mailed me about an essay he wrote in 1997 that’s relevant to my mini-essay. I remember this time for Apple quite well. The company was at a point where it could have gone either way. For people who are primarily Mac Users, it was a dark time. It’s a good explanation of why he feels the way about the tools he chooses to use. “I want to use the tools I love.” I read Rafe’s site every day. He finds good technology stories and tidbits on the Web, and he talks from a knowledgable and opinionated standpoint.(Windows lovers tread gently, He doesn’t care too much for Microsoft.)

Anyone who regularly reads Jesse Berst’s columns will be shocked by this one. Think Different? Why Jesse Wants an iMac . I think this is just an attempt to get more people to read his column by being controversial. Here’s some news for you Jesse: Macs crash about as often as Windows machines. Maybe not for everyone, but people who really push their machines will have problems no matter what they are using. The bottom line is that there isn’t the attention to quality that there needs to be in the software industry. As a side note, my new iBook has only crashed twice in the week I have had it. Both times, I was using beta software that caused the problem.(Mozilla M9)

This CNN article has the phrase “‘They’re just luscious,’ Jobs purrs.” in it. What kind of writing is that? He purred? I somehow doubt he actually purred. Later in the article, he also “gushes.”

While I’m in a critical mood, here’s a pet peeve. Why do people who put their press release online on their own site leave the phrase at the bottom that says “For more information see (insert link to site you are already on here)?” Here’s an example . To me it says “our publicity firm doesn’t get the Web.”

One really cool thing about my new employer is that they have agreed to let me put a Web server for my personal use on their network. I still have to decide what platform I want to use. It’s a tough decision.

Today’s soundtrack: The Fight Club Soundtrack (Dust Brothers)

What is the best piece of software ever written?

MacWorld reviews Photoshop 5.5. I agree, the update is a really important one for Web people. I still like Fireworks as a pure Web image tool better.

I guess I shouldn’t care, but this person rated Bump as a 4.5 out of 9. As you can see, his complaint was that Bump seemed to be more about Weblogs than anything else. Reading the last few weeks, I see a trend too. I guess my interest in the sudden explosion of Weblogs has shown itself in these pages. If you were to read back through the almost two years of entries, you’d find that I haven’t been writing about Weblogs half the time for the last two years. I give his rating of Weblogs page a 4.5 out of 9 too. Very arbitrary:-)