I commented last week that I would be going over my monthly bandwidth allowance. I forgot to check it on the last day of September, but I’m almost sure I went over. As of today, I’m at 1G of my 3G allotment so that’s not good. I’ve also had some comments that this blog loads slowly, which I want to get resolved.
I was hoping to have a new home by the end of this month, but I’m not really finding that perfect fit. I’ve set up a blog at msmvps.com to try that out. The good thing about msmvps is it’s free to me. The bad thing is that it uses .Text as its blog software. .Text is probably a fine piece of software, but I have two related problems with it:
First, it doesn’t seem to allow future posting, that is, scheduling a post for a future date/time. As you may know, Excel is my hobby, not my job. Therefore, I create posts each night and schedule them to show up the next day. If I know I won’t be able to create any posts one night, I can post a couple of days in advance. I don’t know if that’s such a big deal, but I like blogs that have something to read every day and I like it when the posts are spread out.
The second problem is that .Text has zero documentation. Heck, maybe it supports future posting, but I wouldn’t have any idea. There are peer-to-peer forums and wikis, but I’m not the type to go searching for needles in haystacks. I suppose I could learn ASP.Net and be a real expert at .Text. One time consuming hobby at a time, thank you.
Here are my options as I see them:
| Option | Good | Bad |
| Stay with TypePad. | I don’t have to move my archives to some new host. | I would have to upgrade from $9/month to $15/month to get 5GB of bandwidth. It doesn’t really solve the problem that some people are having with slow loading. |
| MSMVP | Save money | I don’t know .Text and I’m disinclined to learn it. They don’t host my images (which, as you know, I use a lot), so I’d have to FTP those somewhere else. I moved one post over to msmvps.comdicksblog and I had to add a bunch of line break tags to make it look right. No future posting. |
| Use my other host | I’m already paying for it. | All the good blogging software I’ve found uses PHP, which they don’t offer. |
| New host | Get rid of bandwidth problem | Fear of the unknown. What if the new host sucks? Then I have to move again? |
Your opinion please. How important is having posts every day? Throughout the day? What if I’m on vacation for a week? Can you recommend blogging software that doesn’t use PHP? Any other comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
It sounds like future posts are something you truly enjoy. So, I would put that in the ‘required’ column. On a related note, I like blogs to have regular posts. It doesn’t have to be daily, but I like to know that there will be new content at a regular interval. Bloggers that post irregularly quickly lose my interest. But maybe, that’s just me.
That Walkenbach fellow has had a few posts about blogging software. The comments to those posts may prove helpful to you, because all sorts of folks chimed in about their favorite blog software. JWalk has had several posts on web hosting that may be informative, as well.
I note that his new Google ads seem to be centered around blogging software today. Click at your own risk.
Good luck, Dick!
Hi Dick,
This probably falls under “any other comments or suggestions” . . .
I’m running ExpressionEngine by pMachine (www.pmachine.com) on my site mainly because I wanted something that I thought would allow expansion and flexibility over time as well as allow me to learn how to build a website.
The upside to running EE is that it is a total content management system. The software allows an unlimited amount of weblogs, future posting, email posting, emailing entries, multiple image uploads and resizing, custom page designs, and many more features. It allows for the optional use of PHP but it’s not required. In my opinion the service, support, and documentation has been excellent.
The downside is that it costs about $100 for someone like yourself who is currently running another blogging software to purchase. That’s over and above the regular hosting price. Also, set-up time is a consideration. I started from scratch and it took me a good while to set all of the pages up like I wanted them to appear. I’m not sure how importing TypePad entries into EE works but I’m sure its been done by others.
I usually try to post entries one to two weeks out and schedule them to appear daily. Personally, it’s good for me to have something appear daily in my weblog because it forces me to study Excel. I also think readers appreciate the consistency too.
John Mansfield
Dick – I’ve been using FatCow as a web host for a number of years for a number of sites. It has everything that I’ve needed to run MovableType and now WordPress on it and it’s $100/year. I don’t work there or anything, I’m just a satisfied customer with 3 domains there. If you need more info, you can hit me up! I would get a free month of service if you got an official recomendation from me, so let me know if you’d like me to forward on an invite.
PS – you get 25 Gig a month of traffic…
Dick,
Have you tried freeola.com as a host. It it free and supports php, not sure about bandwidth limits.
Worth a look!
Hi Dick,
Your blog used to be slow but seem to have gotten a lot better recently.
Then again, I am in a completely different time zone. I have lots of trouble posting late at night which I think is because maintenance is being done then.
Posting when you can is better than not at all. Your blog is always appreciated ;-)
Dick,
Excellent site.
I’ve make reading it part of my morning routine (e-mail, news, Dick’s blog) – so I’d have to be honest and say regular entries are very nice.
That said, I enjoy reading everyone elses comments almost as much as your own.
I noticed the loading speed up until recently. A few days ago it sped up.
I’m on 33k6 so I learn to be happy with what I’ve got.
Dick,
I echo everything Rob said. Great site, regular posts are good (I miss it when you’re “gone” for a day or two) and the speed is fine.
Dick,
Just as an update on the load speed – as previously mentioned, the sidebar and banner load almost instantly, while the blog entries take ages. Only seems to happen at work, not at home using a 56K modem. I had a chat with one of our technical boffins, they said that it may be down to the WebSense software that is used for restricting access to sites at work. It could be taking a while to load while the blog entries are scanned for potential “nastiness”.
Sounded like a bit of a stab in the dark to me, as other blogs (such as J-Walk) don’t suffer the same delays. But then I don’t know how the blog entries are stored by the different blog software packages, so there may be something in it.
Regardless of what happens, your blog is in no danger at all of falling off my “check multiple times a day” list. Without wanting to sound like a total suck-up, I would argue that rather than being referred to as a Microsoft MVP, you could be referred to as “The Microsoft MVMVP” due to all the great stuff you’ve put up.
Love your work…
The loading is the same for me: fast header and list, excruciatingly slow with the blog entries. This is my home/work cable internet access with no filters other than the Proxometron to block popups and ads (it has no effect on any other blogs).
So I click on the link, and about three others at the same time, then read them in reverse order. By the time I’m finished with the others, Dick’s is waiting.
– Jon
Maybe you guys can do me a favor. Go to typepad.com and click on a few other typepad sites (like from the recently updated list). See if you get the same loading characteristics. I’d be interested to know if it’s typepads servers or something I’m doing. I think I use quite a bit more images than most sites, but it should still be noticeable if the problem’s on their end. Thanks if you can help with that.
Tried your request of clicking on other Typepad sites from the recently updated list – they all come up almost instantly.
I don’t think your images are the culprit – the comments page for this entry (which is all text as far as I can tell) doesn’t come up any quicker.
I have Colo’s RSS reader in Excel – the RSS feed is instant.
Hope this helps.
Don’t know what you’ve done differently today (if anything), but it’s coming up instantly today. Nice. If it keeps up I’ll have a new home page… :o)