Archive for March, 2009

Blogs and Our FamilyForum

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Over the years we’ve tried several different Blog systems for Our FamilyForum, some we liked a lot some not so much. disturbed

The three main contenders have been zCommunity, WordPress and FelBlog…  here’s how they break down and stack up when compared to each other.


 zCommunity:

This quote from the Author’s intro for the zCommunity Mod;

Description:
Powerful and flexible blog add-on for your Simple Machines forum.  Tons of options and features for one or an infinite number of blogs.  Use the Blogging Community mode to add a blogging community to your site or be selfish and just have your own blog.
Extreme flexibility because of the huge number of both admin-only options and individual blog settings.  You could have a community blog in which all your members can post articles.  You could have a blog in which only a select few members can post.  You could even have a wiki-style blog in which literally anybody can post/modify articles (even guests).  This is possible because you can add specific members to a blog’s “Users Allowed to Post Articles” list or you can add entire member groups to a blog’s “Groups Allowed to Post Articles” list.  And each blog’s lists are their own.

This one is still in development and while it is the easiest to setup and use it lacks the features and overall punch and power of the other two entries. It may well turn out to be a good blogging tool at some point in the future, but for now it’s just one to keep an eye on.


FelBlog:

FelBlog is my favorite blogging tool and we have had it in use on the FamilyForum for some years now, but unfortunately it’s no longer maintained.
The lady (Feline) who originally wrote the software for FelBlog has moved on the other programing and has decided not to keep the blog software updated and as other software’s that make up the platform for our forums do get updated it becomes increasing more difficult for us to rewrite the blog software so that it will work with the updated platform. My limited skills will only help to make it all work together for a while and it now looks as though my ‘limit’ has been reached so I’ve decided to not use FelBlog any further. 


WordPress:

This quote from the WordPress site;

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

More simply, WordPress is what you use when you want to work with your blogging software, not fight it.

My second fav.

While it’s true that WP is #2 on my ‘fav’ list, it is nonetheless THE blogging software to use if you are serious about blogging.

So… why is it only number two on my list?
Because there is no good or easy way to ‘bridge’ WP to the software platform (SMF) that we use for the FamilyForum.
SMF (Simple Machines Forum) is IMHO the very best forum software platform available, plus it’s free which makes it even better, so anything that we use with the family web site needs to be compatible with SMF, but in the case of WP we have no way to bridge it to the SMF member base the way FelBlog would do and that’s why it came in second place.

But after saying all of that… WordPress will be our choice of blog software to use because nothing else comes remotely close for features and design options.

So… if you are a member of Our FamilyForum and would like to have a blog section of your own send me a note and I’ll set up an account for you.

Enjoy… GPa Ken.

Tobaccoville Weather!

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

The weather here in Tobaccoville is rather dreary today!

We’ve been having rain for several days now… and, we’ll be glad when it clears up.

weather

The rain totals are still supposed to be low, bordering on drought conditions, so we need the rain, still…
GMa Kay says we’ll need a boat soon!