So earlier today I wrote a post upon The Blog Herald regarding VaultPress (a service by Automattic/WordPress that securely backs up your entire blog) that was at best speculative and at worst slanderous.

In his wisdom my Editor (that would be Franky) pulled the article offline, although unfortunately other sites have picked up my sloppy article which is currently tarnishing VaultPress’s good name.

I personally owe a lot to the folks at Automattic, whose software & services have turned blogging from what use to be a chore to an enjoyable experience.

In fact just today Isaac from Intense Debate (a service that is literally saving my skin from human spammers) went out of his way to create a fix for my micro blog so that I could continue to enjoy using the p2 Theme by Automattic.

Since it was my big mouth that created this whole farce, I’m going to be spending the rest of tonight contacting bloggers/journalist who republished my sad piece of journalism in order to clear VaultPress’s name.

If anyone runs across any reprints please email me a link at darnell.clayton@gmail.com so I can resolve my lapse of judgement. Thanks!

Note: Apologies to Matt, Paul and the entire Automattic crew.

Well, after a few hours, I finally finished 95% of the customizations for this site.

WordPress may have it’s drawbacks code wise compared to Blogger’s simplicity, but it’s a lot more powerful tool–something my best friend often reminded me of.

There is still a lot more I have to do behind the scenes, but for now I’m quite satisfied as I can happily blog from my iPhone. 

Peace, and if you notice any errors feel free to let me know.

Just for your info, this site will be under construction throughout the day as I iron out the details, themes, etc. of the site.

Hopefully this will not last longer than a day, but it may until Wednesday before the site is at its best.

I love Google! I really do! Never has one company had so much impact upon my life (for the positive) and I doubt I’ll find another that will.

So why am I migrating away?

Answer: it isn’t wise for me to put all of my eggs in one basket.

On the rare occasions when Google was down/inaccessable, 90% of my geek life suffered sending me into nerd panic mode.

After much internal debate I have been slowly moving my life off of Google’s servers & choosing alternatives.

Here is my list thus far (with reasons to boot):

Blogger.com –> WordPress (self hosted)
• Reason: wanted anti-spam comment protection minus the word puzzles. Also plugins & pages were a plus.

Picasa Web Albums –> Facebook
• Reason: Much more interaction with friends, plus the fact that Facebook is much more mobile friendly (at least for the iPhone, Blackberry & Palm Pre).

Google Voice –> Skype
• Reason: Skype is an actual stand alone phone service, where Google Voice just rediects. Both are cool though!

Google Checkout –> PayPal
• Reason: PayPal is a lot more flexible. & I like their guarentees better.

Picasa (Destop Software) –> Paint.NET
• Reason: Paint.NET has a lot more features. Microsoft really needs to hire this guy.

That is it thus far, but I am going to be seeking out more alternatives (as the competition has drastically improved in the last few years).

Other Google services I’ll probably never leave (like YouTube, Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Reader, Google Earth, Google Calendar, Google Analytics, AdSense, Google News, etc.) while others I might consider (replacing Google Docs with Zoho, & Google Search with Bing).

And for you Android fans out there, I’m probably not going to use those phones (& before you whine about openess, the iPhone is only a jailbreak away).

If anyone has other suggestions for Google alternatives, feel free to let me know in the comment section below.

– Posted from my iPhone

When I was figuring out themes for my blog, I originally went with LightSource, but wanted something with a more traditional blog layout (like eNews), without losing the elegant background.

While I do love this current theme, its a little too bland for me, so I am looking forward to a new upgrade to compliment the other sites that I’ve purchased.

I hate to dissappoint the fan boys and girls on both sides of the fence, but this is not a post bashing one side or the other.

Rather it is simply my reflection of two of the most popular blogging services, Blogger (as well as it’s eternal beta Blogger in Draft) and WordPress.org (not to be confused with WordPress.com, which I would not recommend using due to it’s limitations, which I’ll explain below).

Where WordPress Excels

What I love about WordPress can be summed up in one word: design.

You’ll won’t find a larger collection of beautiful themes outside of this platform, which probably explains why do many Blogger themes are imported from WordPress.

While there are plenty of free WordPress themes out there, I would recommend purchasing a premium theme (like Elegant Themes which is inexpensive).

Another thing I love about WordPress is that it is comment friendly. Instead of using CAPTCHA’s or weird puzzles, WordPress users can use Askimet (spelling?) which uses geek magic to decipher between the spammers and the humans (WordPress.org users I would recommend using WP Spam Free which is better–and free!).

These anti-spam plugins keep make the WordPress commenting design much friendlier–unless of course you are a spammer.

Last but not least the ability to add pages is a plus, which allows you to create an “about me” section, making your blog much more professional.

Where Blogger Excels

Owned by Google, Blogger is the most popular blogging platform online. If I could sum up Blogger in one word, it would be this: freedom.

When it comes to posting media content (whether images, video or iframe documents) Blogger has IMHO no close rival. Users are allowed to embed content from anywhere, without the fear of it being blocked due to “security reasons” (which is why I don’t use WordPress.com).

You can also embed content from Google Docs, a feature I found to be lacking in WordPress (both of them).

Over in the Blogger in Draft arena, users can easily adjust the position of the image within the post by simply dragging it, a feature that makes “dressing up” the post all the easier.

This one feature saves me a lot of time, as I don’t have to muck with the code in order to find the perferct picture placement.

Users can also upload video directly into Blogger, without the need to upload it on YouTube or elsewhere, which is great way to keep the video on your blog instead of infront of the public masses.

Last but not least Blogger’s widgets make it very easy to add, adjust or remove content from your blog, without the need to enter within the admin arena.

Conclusion

While I could have mentioned other items (like WordPress Plugins or specific Blogger widgets), these above pretty much sum up the major differences between the two.

Since neither WordPress or Blogger are meeting my complete needs, I’ve decided to use both platforms until one of them steps up their game. I already have 8 blogs (4 on Blogger, 2 on WordPress.com and 2 running WordPress.org on my own server).

Both WordPress and Blogger are excellent services, although if you are short on cash I would recommend using Blogger (as you can blog on your own domain for $10/year) although if you prefer to host you own blog on your own server, I would suggest using WordPress.org.

–Posted via iPhone