And so I have been using WordPress for quite a while now. However, I must say, I am starting to miss my Blogger days. I am not that much of an expert on all things concerning blogging, I am quite sure. But perhaps this post might be useful to those contemplating the switch from Blogger to WordPress.
Pros:
- Quite an easy to use interface that requires no knowledge of HTML or CSS.
- Category tags on each post
- Clean, easy to read, non-overly eye burning pink and black layouts that scream for attention.
- Built in blog statistics that can be accessed from the Dashboard.
- Allows password protection on selected posts
- Allows us to import everything from our former blogs in less than 15 minutes.
- The ability to compose separate "Pages" that opens on another window.
- It is relatively faster to upload photos than Blogger.
- The blog is designed mostly to create an emphasis on your writings, and less on the layouts and other stuff.
There is probably a lot more pros than that I have mentioned. But perhaps I haven't discovered it yet? Hehe.
Lets move on the the little things that annoys me about WordPress. (*aggh!*)
Cons
- You can't tweak your layout the way you can tweak a Blogger layout with your knowledge of HTML/CSS (e.g. adding in codes for Word of the Day, Tagboard, etc)
- No GoogleAds!
- You don't have freedom to make your own little cute layout that only uses size 10 Verdana font decorated with a jewelled star on top (wink!). Instead, you choose from a selection of ready made layouts that cannot be tweaked at all.
- The pre-designed layouts does not have fonts big enough or nice enough for my liking.
- Everyone has a layout that looks like yours, unlike the personalise-able layouts from Blogger. I feel very common because of that.
I know, it is not that big a deal. But IT IS DRIVING ME NUTS! But that does not mean that I will be moving back to Blogger anytime soon. But, for those wanting to move from Blogger to WordPress, one word of warning. If you love that freedom of having a unique layout, customised to your own preferences, then I suggest you sleep over it. But if you prefer a non-hassle, clean, minimal maintenance blog, then by all means, sign up for WordPress!
iammaurina 
You can try being hosted. That way you can tweak with your layouts, and put GoogleAds or codes for Word of The Day and TagBoard..
Just a suggestion 🙂
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Eeeek! I am not ready to be hosted! I’m still trying to get over the fact that I blog! LOL
Omigod, I blog.
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Woman. You. Blog.
Get over it, move on and get hosted. Hahaha.
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Aggggggggghhhhhhhhh~~~~
Actually, I will, as soon as my readership hits the 1 millionth mark.
LOL.
Eh sajuk batis ku eh mikirkan. Stop it!
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You could always check the documentation (http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page)
WordPress is great if you want to add a blog to an already existing website. If all you want to do is post your ramblings without having to worry about how it’s done, Blogger and other online blog providers will suffice. But if you want to play around with HTML, CSS and scripting languages like JavaScript and PHP, then you might want the flexibility of playing around with the server and such.
You’ll have to check the documentation but you can tweak the layout in WordPress. You can do it the hardcore way (which is what I did) and hack the underlying code but I remember reading that WordPress actually allows you to display your own pre-coded pages. Check the documentation, I’m sure it’s in there somewhere.
Google Ads? Nothing is stopping you from putting Google Ads in your WordPress blogs unless your hosting service explicitly forbids it.
That said, WordPress provides flexibility for the people who want it. For the people who don’t need it they will find that they’ll have to do a lot of reading in order to get WordPress to do what they want.
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p.s. I would like to discourage people form actively hacking the underlying code of WordPress. Trust me, it’s easier to just read the official documentation (which is A LOT better than what I had when WordPress 1.2 was out. Hacking was the only way I knew to change the functionality of WordPress) Besides, when a new version of WordPress comes out you can’t transfer your hacks over so easily. Best to stick to learn to code plug-ins and designs that conform to the spcifications in the documentation.
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Haha LSM, for amateur bloggers like me who only have an elementary knowledge of HTML and CSS (actually I dont have much knowledge in CSS, I find CSS generators online to generated my CSS), what you’ve just described might as well be the steps you go if you want to perform brain surgery.
And my point is, so are most readings about WordPress online. The tutorials are so hard to understand without having sufficient knowledge of advanced computer terminologies. (at least that is what it seemed to me) However, for Blogger, everything is so clear cut and concise. The tutorials were so simple, even my 8 year old sister could understand.
I will probably get around to doing more exploration one day, and perhaps I will find a resource simple enough for my small brain to comprehend. But untill then, one-click ready made layouts will suffice! 🙂
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P.S: Unless you publish a step by step guide for idiots here, I am quite sure no one will be willing to attempt hacking or cracking websites of any sort. Hehe. By the way, LSM! I miss your posts!!! hope you find a new host soon!
P.P.S: Hmm, except for Tina perhaps. She might know how to hack into stuff. OR Naz. These two I am a bit suspicious of. They’re something hantap.
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We’ll be adding more and more customization over time, thanks for being patient with us.
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Well I’m glad somebody misses my posts 😛 I’m having a little more trouble than I thought with my shifting hosts and it may very well be likely that my domain (limshengming.com) will be down for a few weeks. Long story, and I’ll explain it when my site gets back.
Being a trained programmer (which is possibly the only thing university taught me) I have to agree that documentation for software is often the most lacking. Programmers are programmers, they’re not tech-writers and properly documenting their applications is something that has to be reminded time and time again. And as you’ve mentioned, it’s not easy to tailor the documentation so that everyone will understand what is being said but that shouldn’t stop programmers from trying.
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Hating to do documentation is like wishing no one would use your program. Which is contradictory to why you were there in the first place. Every single bit of documentation is a pain. And I hate doing it. I wish they could just abolish it. But that’s probably never since I (and everyone else) use these things and read their documentation to go through it all anyway. LOL.
I don’t do all these hacking stuff, by the way.
Ask LSM to host you when he has his shifting hosts problem sorted out. 😉 Haha, then you can make your own layout with no hacking involved! (Only the next thing you would have to be is PHP-literate.)
Oh well, you can’t have everything. 😉
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The fundamental difference that no one’s noted is that T&R’s hosted at WordPress.com, which to my knowledge does not allow uploading of custom Themes onto its server (or general FTPing at all), so you’ll have to wait until the developers make that option available.
As a small fix, you can try html-ing your posts manually to show a larger font-size.
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The fundamental difference that no one’s noted is that T&R’s hosted at WordPress.com, which to my knowledge does not allow uploading of custom Themes onto its server (or general FTPing at all), so you’ll have to wait until the developers make that option available.-
–> YES!!! I wanted to say that but I don’t know how. Thats what i said. I have to choose themes from a set of premade layouts which cannot be tweaked. Hehehe. But yes, I guess I’ll have to be patient. WordPress will improve I am sure as Matt has assured us.
Ouuu, getting hosted by LSM? If he approves Miss Maurina might. Wink wink. But perhapsd LSM is the lone ranger.
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Yeah, Naz, that’s what I know too.. (about blogs hosted at WordPress.com, I mean) but I kinda thought LSM had a way through that. But I guess my English is that poor and I probably misunderstood what LSM had to say 😉
Anyway, buy your own domain then 😀
But then again, you can come to that horrifying realization that you actually blog. *shock horror*
Hehehe.
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I just had my cursor hover over my name and I realized that I was “logged in” using my own, old WP.com account. Hahaha.
Ignore that, is what I’m trying to say. 😛
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Oh bugger, and when I log off, I forgot to change the old URL. Pfft. Sorry to mess this up, Miss Maurina. You can delete my comments :$
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Oei, oei, oei! When did I suddenly become the Santa Claus of cyberspace giving away hosting for free? ;P And I may be misunderstanding but I am not (and was never) hosted at WordPress.com. My blog is currently hosted over at Spymac (which I can’t recommend after being there for 2 years) but if things work out I’ll be up my WordPress blog will be up and running over at site5.com soon.
Actually, getting the hosting space wasn’t a problem, it was transferring my domain from Spymac to another registrar. site5.com doesn’t handle the nitty-gritty domain details so I had to go elsewhere. I won’t expound on it all right now – saving that for my first post over at my new host – suffice to say that it sucks being in Brunei.
And hey Maurina, if you want to “hack” your CSS (heh heh…) open up themes/thirteen/style.css and scroll down until you find #wrapper. Under font-size, replace the current value of 0.92em with a larger number like 1.1em or 1.2em. This will affect ALL the text on the page. Be careful though because larger text may break the layout.
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