Pick a blogging technology that's right for you

If you want to start a blog today, the easiest technology to use is a hosted online service like Blogger. These services do everything for you except write your copy and take your photos. You don't have to learn any code, mess with any code setup or spend time designing your blog from scratch. Blogger is just one of several services that do all this for you for free.

Want a traditional mostly-words blog? Blogger (also known as Blogspot) will do fine, and you can be up and filing your first blog post in 10 minutes. As a bonus, because Blogger is run by Google, Google AdSense is built in, which will allow you to convert traffic into a few dollars. You won't get rich, but if your site eventually becomes popular, you might take in enough to buy something nice on eBay. There are several other online services that work fine, but most other free services forbid ads. A good one is Wordpress.com. This online service is great! If you eventually discover you want to set up your own script, this makes it easy, since the technology that drives wordpress.com is available for download at wordpress.org. It's a strong and versatile PHP/MySQL script that is quite easy to set up.

One reason you may prefer a script you set up to a hosted service like Blogger is that virtually all hosted services (at least the free ones), force you to agree at signup that they acquire basically all rights to whatever you post. They mostly want to be able to use your material for marketing their service, but the language usually leaves it totally up to the service what they do with your words and/or images. Once you pay for service, this generally is not an issue.

If you know a bit of HTML and know what FTP means, you are equipped to rent webhost space and install the blogging script of your choice. The most popular blog scripts are quite simple to install and set up. Joomla is famous for it's quick and painless installation, but other scripts like Drupal or Wordpress are no more difficult. Some, like SimplePHPBlog, are even simpler.

If, instead of words, you will mostly be uploading photos or just a few sentences, you might like the service at tumblr.com. It works a lot like Blogger, but is oriented toward images and video posts. It works great! If you like the idea a quick and fun posting of images and words, but would prefer to control your content, take a look at Gelato CMS. It is a free PHP/MySQL script that emulates the functionality of tumblr. I love Gelato. It's fun. It's fast. It works. It looks good.

For beginners at blogging, I recommend Blogger.com, Wordpress.com or Tumblr.com. They work well, they're free, they're easy to get going right now.

For people who are interested in renting server space and running their own script, I recommend WordPress.org or Gelato CMS (which is a blog script, not a CMS script). Wordpress is a tested, reliable and versatile blogging script with lots of available add-ons and templates. Gelato is a new script, but it works fine for me is perfect for fast, painless posts. Wordpress allows total customization of appearance and functionality. Gelato offers a couple of nice templates, but little else - but it doesn't need anything else.

Take your pick and get down the real business at hand - writing your blog!

Categories: Blog, Comparison, Script

Best simple CMS systems - March 19, 2008

Simplicity is best when it comes to technology. When I need a content management system to set up a new web site, I want the simplest piece of software that will do the job. If the site must be complex and multi-faceted, then a complicated CMS may be called for. But if you just need to set up a blog or presentation web site, go simple!

Below is a list of my favorite "simple" CMS of blog scripts at the moment.

If you're setting up a blog, there are two basic technical routes you can take. Either use a hosted service, where you piggyback on an existing system, or create your own website, where you set up a script system on web hosting space.

Hosted services are quick and easy. Some are totally free. At least one allows you the option of making money from your blog. These are set up mainly for blogs, but if you work at it, they can be used as pretty good informational websites; choose a service that allows categories of content and go to it. Most of the big services automatically get you into search engines. But by using one of these services, you lose a degree of control over your content. By their very nature, the service has control of whatever you post. In the case of free hosted services, it is possible that they could turn off service to you with no notice. That's not likely if you choose one of the big players with a track record. But it's possible. The Terms of Agreement at many hosted services specify that the service owns some rights to whatever you post on your blog. They generally mean they can promote your blog in their marketing, but a few reserve the right to re-sell you words for their own profit. If this concerns you, read the fine print when you sign up.

My top picks for hosted services:

Blogger.com - The best-known blogging service, Blogger or Blogspot is also one of the best. It's free, it's easy, and it has built-in AdSense capability, which means you can make money if you get traffic. Blogger is laughably easy to set up. Coming in cold, you can have a blog up and running in 15 minutes. There are plenty of templates to choose from, you can select colors and fonts online, and if you prefer, you can easily create your own templates.

Tumblr.com - This relatively new service is fun! It offers a clean, simple interface that allows you to post text, photo, video or other types of content with just a couple of clicks. The default template is excellent, and their are others to choose from. And it's free.

Wordpress.com - An excellent blogging service, also for free. Not to be confused with the installable script named Wordpress, mentioned below. This is a terrific service. The only downside in my opinion is that you can't put AdSense or any other kind of income-generating ad on this site. If you want to make money, go elsewhere.

Xanga.com - A relative newcomer to the scene, this service looks attractive. But like Wordpress.com, you can't put ads on blogs here. Free.

Terapad.com - Another attractive alternative with lots of available templates. No ads allowed. Free.

Facebook.com - You probably know more about it than I do.

If you would rather retain more control over your content, consider getting hosting space and installing a blog or CMS script. The line between blog and CMS is not as sharp as it once was, and several scripts can serve for either purpose.

PHP is the standard scripting language these days, and if you want to go simple, it's the way to go. Virtually all webhosts include PHP in their offerings, even most of the free web hosts. You don't need to have any PHP skills to use some of these scripts; others may require a few minutes of studying to get running. But on the whole, these are all easy to install and easy to use.

When you're concerned with simplicity, one of the first choices you need to make is between a script that uses flat files for storage or data or one that uses a database, usually MySQL. For sheer simplicity, I recommend flat files. This kind of script keeps your text in simple text files on the server. This has two big benefits. First, you can host this kind of script on any server, including any free server (as long as the underlying language, like PHP, is there). Second, when you want to make a backup of your site, you just copy all the files and you're done.

By contrast, scripts that use a database to store your entries keep the data in tables created by and processed by a database engine. This means the server your site is hosted on must have that database engine installed and running. It also means that every time some one requests a look at one of your pages, the server has to run not only the PHP interpreter, but also the database engine, before it can display the page. This can make for busy servers and ultimately slowdowns of page delivery. Proponents of database storage say it is more reliable than flat file storage. I've never had any trouble iwth either method. I do know that on two free servers I've tested with a CMS script that can use either method, flat file was faster. On a regular, paid server, that situation may be reversed, but I'm not sure.

Here are my favorite flat file blogging scripts of the moment:

Kure - This is the ultimate in simplicity. The script is tiny, less than 22K in code. It is blisteringly fast. It uses flat files. It would work great by itself or as a blog include inside another page via an iFrame. So simple, you don't need a brain to install this. Free.

Flatpress - An excellent small, lightweight blogging script. Logical administrative interface. Fast. A few nice templates. Looks like creating your own templates is relatively easy. Free.

SimplePHPBlog - A great little blogging script that can also pull duty as a minimalist CMS. With just a tiny bit of coding knowledge, you can modify the template to your heart's delight. With absolutely no such knowledge, you can still modfy the color scheme and component arrangement via an elegantly simple control panel. Very easy to install. Free.

Pivot - A full-featured blogging script that uses flat files for storage. It's been around for a few years, and a new release in late 2007 made it better than ever. Larger and more complex than Flatpress, Pivot also offers more features, including a tagcloud. Easy to install. In my test installation, Pivot pages were slow to load. Free.

Here are my favorite flat file CMS scripts of the moment:

LightNEasy - A new flat file CMS script that is terrific. Nice templates. Simple as pie to make your own templates. Built-in graphics gallery capability. Very nice all-around script. Very easy to install. Free.

MuCMS - Also known as Matt's Micro Content Management System, this gem of a script uses flat files but offers many features of the database-backed big guys. It has built-in statistics, automatic page cacheing to lighten server load, and a very slick administrative interface. It comes packaged at the moment with only two templates, but they're both beautiful. And the author offers an in-depth tutorial on converting any standard template for use with MuCMS. Installation is very easy if you put the script in your root directory. If you're more advanced and choose to put in a subdirectory, you need to follow the author's excellent directions, but this could be daunting if you know nothing about HTML. You also need to know very basic HTML to set up the menu system via the online form, which basically just presents the menu code in a window. Once the script is installed and the menu configured, this script is clean and easy to use. Highly recommended. Free.

FuzzyLime - An interesting CMS script that uses flat files. Pretty, very good control panel with logical layout. A couple of nice templates. I couldn't get the built-in poll to work at all, but the gallery module and everything else worked well. Free.

Drake CMS - A very interesting script that offers you the choice of flat file or database data storage. You can even switch back and forth at will! Even if you are using flat files, the script can create an SQL backup of the site's data, allowing you to restore it to a wide range of databases, or back to flat files. Drake includes a range of modules including calendar of events and forum. Several nice templates are available, and are easily modified if you have a smattering of HTML knowledge. Like many of the more complex CMS scripts, Drake's administrative interface takes a while to get familiar with. This is one of my pet peeves with Drupal (which is a wonderful CMS for large site with complex requirements). In both Drake and Drupal, the administrative interface seems designed for the installer rather than the content producer. What I mean is that when you log on as the administrator, you are presented with dozens of menus, with the commands to create a new post or article buried in there somewhere. I may be exaggerating, but not much. Free. As of early 2008, undergoing a name change to Lanius CMS.

Here are my favorite MySQL blogging scripts of the moment:

Gelato - The most fun in a blogging script right out of the box. Easy-as-pie setup. Terrific default template, and other templates are available. Administrative interface so clean and logical that it makes every other blogging system look stupid. And it works great! The only thing I'd like to see the developers add is some way to categorize posts; that way, it could be used as a content management system that's actually fun! I've seen Gelato compared to Chyrp, and I guess I see the similarity in structure. But Chyrp is more complicated to set up, the admin interface is not as clean, and the templates aren't as good. I'll take Gelato, please, and gosh is it tasty. Free.

Wordpress - Available at Wordpress.org (not wordpress.com, which is a hosted service using the same script), Wordpress may be the most popular blogging script on Earth. It is excellent. Simple to install and configure, hugely extensible and reliable. By using some off-the-shelf extensions, it can easily function as a very good CMS, too. And it is free.

Here are my favorite MySQL CMS scripts of the moment:

Drupal - After putting together a fairly complex site with Drupal 5, I have a love-hate relationship with this capable CMS script. On the positive side, Drupal and its hundreds of plugins can do almost anything you need to do. The site I am still working on includes a shopping cart, several newsletters with different subscription lists, banner and button ads, extensive article archives, blogs and online surveys, among other things. Drupal can do all that and much more. On the negative side, that complexity comes with a price - complexity. Installing the base script was very easy. Adding most modules isn't bad. But when you get into more complicated modules, such as a shopping cart, things get grim. The shopping cart module I installed required more than a dozen other modules be installed first, then each one had to separately configured. When I had trouble, I discovered that the online help forums for the shopping cart were filled with other folks' troubles, and some had answers while other didn't. My main quibble with Drupal itself is that to do one thing, like activate a module, typically requires that you navigate through a morass of seemingly unrelated control panel areas, designating settings for a variety of things. One module I installed required me to visit five different control panel pages; what irked me was that two of them were never mentioned in the documentation or on the forums. Anyway, if you are creating a site with complex requirements, use Drupal. But be prepared to spend some time. I've heard Drupal is much easier to configure than some other scripts, particularly Typo3. If that's true, I can;t imagine the headaches that might result from using Typo3.

Joomla - This is probably a good CMS choice if you just want to set up a site quickly and are satisfied with one of the many stock templates. Installation is very easy. The control panel is quite nice.

I've tested some other scripts that turned out to be second-stringers. Some looked okay, but weren't as nice as the scripts I've chosen to write about. Some were clunky or slow. And some either were ridiculously difficult to install or failed to install at all.

Here are scripts that show promise, but I have not yet tested extensively: ModX, MemHT, Website Baker.

Here are the scripts I cannot recommend:

Because they were good, but not great: Jaws CMS (promising), Bloofox CMS, BigAce, e107, Falt4, Typolight (very ugly default template), SilverStripe.

Because they're difficult to install and/or use: Typo3 (the setup process was a nightmare), phpCMS (looked promising, but I couldn't figure out how to create a site with it).

Because they have ugly interfaces: XOOPS, PHP-Nuke, Guppy, and others that seem to force every site built on them to look like very busy portal sites, indistinguishable from hundreds of others.

Because they're too dated compared to fresher scripts: SiteMan2, JAF CMS, CuteNews (though I used to love CuteNews).

Because they failed either during installation or during test use: 1024, AIOCP, Enano CMS.

Categories: Comparison, Flat File

MySQL versus flat file data storage

The vast majority of CMS systems store data in a database, typically in the excellent and free MySQL database. This is a reliable data storage method that offers quick response. It is the route I recommend if you foresee your Web site growing to a large number of pages.

But if you plan to operate a typical small or medium sized Web site, you may want to opt for a CMS system that doesn't use a database. Since a database server installation adds another layer of complexity to your Web site, it can overly complicate matters. I'm a firm believer that technical simplicity is the best route. If a simple flat-file CMS system will get the job done, why stress yourself with setting up and running a database?

Virtually all paid PHP hosting plans include access to a database engine. But many free hosts don't.
So if you are setting up a site as cheaply as possible, a flat file system may be the way to go. And there are some great Open Source CMS scripts out there, some robust enough to operate a top-class business Web site.

My favorite of the moment is MuCMS, short for Matt's Micro Content Management System. It requires only that the server it is installed on have PHP. The script itself is otherwise free standing, with no other dependencies. It has some traits that I find very attractive.

It stores each content page in a separate text file, so when someone calls for a certain page, all the script has to do is direct that user to that page. That's a much simpler process than the typical database-backed CMS, which in the same instance would process the request, send a message to the database engine, which would then need to process that request, find the requested information in the database table, send it back to the CMS system, which then would add the design wrapper information, then send the result back to the user.

MuCMS does its simplification magic by doing most of the work at the time the administrator creates the page. All the required information including the content and the design wrapper, at that time is bundled into a plain, straight HTML page and stored. By the time the user asks for that page, all the work is already done, so all the server needs to do then is send it on its way. That is very efficient, because normally, you create or edit a page one time and then it may be requested hundreds or thousands of times. I've noticed that add-ons are available for some maintream database CMS scripts that mimic this trait - they perform the PHP and database actions once and store the result in an HTML file for later recall. A server has to work much less to send an HTML file than it does to perform database manipulations, so the result is a quicker and more responsive Web site.

In addition to speed an efficiency, MuCMS has a clean, attractive admin interface, a couple of very nice bundled front end templates, built-in statistics package, built-in site search and a few other bells and whistles. Installation is not quite as easy as some more popular content management systems, but if you have a bare minimum of understanding of server paths, you can have it up and running in 10 minutes. Setting up the main menu also requires a basic knowledge of HTML, but again, takes just a minute or two to set up. I tested MuCMS with several dozen pages, and it performed fine. The admin interface slowed down slightly as the page number grew, but the public delivery did not.

A very interesting CMS offering is Drake, currently being renamed to Lanius, which was originally a development fork or offshoot of Limbo, which was itself a development fork of Mambo. Mambo used a MySQL database, and stopped being actively developed somewhere around 2004. Limbo used flat files for data storage. Drake offers the end user a choice of either. You can even create a site using one data storage method, create a backup, and restore it to the other. This is a great feature, since if you become dissatisfied with the method you are using, you can change to other without touching the structure or appearance of your site! I tested Drake on a free host and found that it worked faster using the built-in Gladius (flat file) storage system than MySQL. That's probably because the MySQL server software was on a different computer than my site - the extra complexity slowed things down. On a paid host where the MySQL software might be on the same machine as the site itself, the database probably would perform better.

I like Drake, and think it holds much promise as development continues under the Lanius name. Right now, it is handicapped, like many or even most CMS systems because the administration interface makes it difficult for average users. This is one of my pet peeves with most content management systems in common use. You set up a CMS once, then use it to add or edit content repeatedly. But open up a typical CMS control panel, and you are presented with a morass of menu options devoted to setup. Drake has a very complete admin page, but it's hard to find where to add or edit content. It's there, but it's hard to find.

Categories: Comparison, Flat File, MySQL

Off-the-shelf Content Management Systems

Content Management Systems allow you to update and change the content on your site via a Web browser. This is a necessity if you want to keep your site fresh with lively content. A CMS is also the way to go for Web designers who want to give their clients the ability to make changes to their own sites without technical assistance.

I have built custom content management systems for clients in both Perl and ColdFusion. But things have changed. During the last couple of years, PHP and MySQL, both free products, have become the de facto standard for most Web systems of small to medium scope (when you get into huge corporate Web sites, other technologies still hold a strong position). Some PHP content management systems scale just fine to the top end, and are in daily use in corporate America.

Awhile back, it became obvious to me that available off-the-shelf open source CMS systems were just as good for most applications as anything that could be custom built. I no longer build such systems from scratch. It is more cost effective to assess a client's needs and choose an appropriate CMS system that can be easily modified to meet those needs. In most cases, for most clients, very little customization is required beyond modifying a template for appearance.

Coming up next, an article on when you should choose a CMS backed by a database (usually MySQL) and when you're better off selecting a CMS that relies instead on text or xml files.

Later on, reviews of content management systems including Drupal, Jaws, Drake, MuCMS, Joomla, TypoLight and more! And other alternatives including WordPress and SimplePHPblog, blog scripts that can easily pull duty as a content management system.

Categories: CMS, Comparison