I’ve recently been scooped on an article about GreaseMonkey right on Linux Journal, so I’ve been bouncing around some other article ideas here and there in the back of my head. And because of AtlHack and Spread Firefox, I decided to take a look at the open-source Drupal content management platform. Though I’ve only briefly had an opportunity to look at the system in detail, it’s clean API design and hooks system allows for great flexibility and extensibility. There’s also a great deal of solid documentation on the Drupal website. As of now, I’ve got a basic setup with more or less the default installation.

Just saw an advertisement for GameFly on television. It’s like Netflix, but for video games. Having a Netflix and Giganews account myself, I’m a huge fan of these subscription type services. Sweet.

I’ve been comtemplating the move for a long time, and there are several good reasons for doing so. First, the advantages of switching to WordPress:

• A code base that is useful to someone other than just myself. Code contributions would benefit everyone that uses WordPress, and not stay locked within my proprietary PHP system.
• Features that I’d like to have, but are not important enough to take the time to implement myself. These include an aesthetic administration interface, automatic pings, and a proper templating system.
• A plugin architecture to facilitate custom modifications to the weblog system, including a moderated comment system to handle spam.
• It takes a lot of work to maintain a weblog, let alone the added burden of having to actually develop and maintain its code. There are other, more interesting projects that I want to pursue.

There are a few obstacles that currently prevent me from immediately switching:

• Importing both the posts and comments from the existing weblog system. I have a generalized technique for doing this involving XML, but no code has yet been written.
• Adding the photogallery functionality and the customized LaTeX rendering engine.
• Providing a URL map between the previous weblog and the new weblog in order to maintain link integrity, and not lose search engine rank.
• Migrating away from the TextWiki system for transforming structured text.

These problems are not insurmountable. I intend to have the new weblog up and running by the end of the month. Bobafred and Hollis MB have already made the switch from their custom weblogs, so I know it’s definitely doable.