I finally took the plunge.  After blabbing about moving my blog over to Expression Engine software over a year ago, I’ve finally done it.

So what does it mean to you?  Here’s the skinny on the major new stuff:

• Comments post almost instantaneously.  And even non-members can opt to get e-mail-notified when someone posts a new comment in an entry they’ve replied to.
• No more three-column circus.  Everything’s less cluttered and manically colored now.
• Lots of miscellaneous goodies for “regulars” (see details)

If you’re interested in knowing more about the impetus behind the many, many changes and what it took to achieve them, read on!  But before you do, just one humble request: PLEASE do let me know if anything is clearly not working or looking right. I’d really appreciate it!

More info about the changes

• I’ve de-emphasized large date headers and eschewed a side-calendar; the focus is on my writing content, not the arbitrary dates I post things.
• Search and other navigation options have also been moved out of the main fold.  Most folks just visit my blog front page and individual entries they find via search .
• I chose Expression Engine over Movable Type because I felt that customizing and managing BLADAM would be much easier for me with the former.  MT’s a great program, but I wanted to try something new.
• EE also offers better blog-spam protection out of the box than MT, IMHO, and certainly more flexible and cool membership options.

There are some downsides to the changed infrastructure, however.  Since every page is literally written on the fly (via php) AND I’m altering page elements based on many variables, page accesses—especially initial ones—are slower than before.  Additionally, the nifty menu thingy I’ve put up top is also not very dialup friendly (a handful of javascript files have to be loaded the first time each person visits).  And lastly, MovableType is definitely the dominant player in the blogging space… with a larger community, more plugins, and so on.

Still, though, I’m admittedly pleased with how things have worked out so far, and I would indeed highly recommend Expression Engine to others based upon my experiences.

* * *

I still have a *TON* to do as part of the transition, but at least now I have the basics all set up

I do appreciate your support, your feedback, and your patience, and am always delighted to hear from you.  Like the airlines say… I know you have a choice of pages on the Net to read, and I’m honored you’re reading mine .

Take care, and best of the New Year to you and yours!

(Now I’m finally off to bed.  It’s 6:21am here, and it’s high time I caught some zzzz’s!  Hopefully nothing goes too haywire in the meantime… eek!)