Trying out TypePad
This site is the latest incarnation of a personal information site I've maintained for a decade, first as the "home page" concept of the mid-90's and starting in 2001 as a web log. Since almost the beginning, it's been supported either by my own software or custom system setup.
After almost four years of hosting my web server off my own hardware, I'm trying out using TypePad, a web hosting service based around the Moveable Type publishing system (MT). So far, it seems like a good pick to stay with -- I just don't think it's a good use of time any more to act as a system administrator for a small web site when good, hosted alternatives exist.
As an ex-engineer, there's part of me that always biases towards it being better to build my own system rather than purchase a pre-fabricated service. But as the weblog becomes an increasingly mature technology, the benefits of customization offered by building are getting outweighed by the convenience of sharing development and maintenance with other users. Example: I would never consider it worth my time to get mobile posting from my phone working just for my own web site, but it's now available to me as part of TypePad because the setup cost is being spread across many users.
If you're looking at the archives, you'll find that the images in old posts are still missing. As a new service, TypePad doesn't yet provide me a convinient way to upload the hundreds of small images I've used over the years in posts. A file management page is in beta testing, however, so I should be able to fix the issue soon.
My only regret, so far, is the loss of my old photo gallery, which had 1000+ images and captions collected over the past three years. I still have all of the photos, but I need to decide if it's worth moving some or all of them into TypePad's photo album system. It's a lot of work, but at the same time, they're probably more valuable to me than my old posts.
