Help me make this difficult decision

[skyfaller]

Hey folks, I'm going to put the question to you... which would you rather I updated on a regular basis, my weblog or my livejournal? The basic issue is that I won't be getting comments on my blog anytime soon, (probably not until after SCCS gets SQL support) but you can leave comments on my livejournal. On the other hand, my blog supports categories, which allows me to point someone to all of my entries on Diebold, or all of my entries about music, etc., which you can't do on LiveJournal. Also, it's cool to have complete control over my own blog, but I guess that doesn't really matter to my readers. What are your preferences?

[Poll #229827]

Comments

[sinsofthedove.livejournal.com]

If you use the memory function, you can create categories of entries, such as memorable Diebold entries, etc.

not *exactly* the same

[skyfaller]

Hm, thank you for mentioning that Finlay, memories are much more useful than I thought! This isn't exactly the same though, because if I point you at the Diebold entries on my blog, they're all displayed in full, not as little links you can click on, so it's more pleasant to read. It's as if I kept a blog which was only about Diebold. On the other hand, the LJ memories are cool because I can also include posts that I make in the scdc community and elsewhere... I'm not sure which is better.

[locke61dv.livejournal.com]

It's not perfect, but you can see how Movable Type works with mine:

http://hcs.harvard.edu/~dev/
(excuse the redirect)

Any blogging software with RSS feeds can be made into an LJ-friendly feed, as you can see by looking up the LJ user hotelkant. (Or reallivepreacher, I believe.) Such things don't aggregate comments so much, but that should be okay (and I actually have ideas how to make comments mostly work between LJ and MT). With Movable Type in particular, there is a module to let you CROSSPOST something to both your LJ and your blog.

The big thing about your blog, as I said, is having some sort of Trackback system! That way, by commenting about something on one of the bigger pages you are necessarily getting you name out as well! I think it's somewhat key for getting your name out more.

[skyfaller]

Thanks for the comment Dev! Unfortunately Moveable Type won't work on our webserver, because we do not have cgi-bin access. I use PHPosxom, an unfortunately defunct project to make a clone of Blosxom using only PHP, which happily enough does produce an RSS feed! I have made an LJ feed at the LJ user nelson_blog, so please add that to your friends list! I'll make a separate post about that. Blosxom supports Trackback, so if only PHPosxom were still alive and well, it probably would too. In fact, it would probably support comments and everything as well, somebody was working on a comments module before it died from lack of interest. Let us have a moment of silence for the demise of this noble program... OK, now go out and resurrect it! When I get good at PHP, maybe I'll update PHPosxom just for practice...

ooh, PHPosxom got updated

[skyfaller]

In a beautiful example of why FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) rocks, some guy other than the former developer has done a major update to PHPosxom. It has comments and other cool stuff! I think combined with my LJ feed, I may stay with my blog after all. No decision yet, however :-)

[locke61dv.livejournal.com]

FYI, you can buy accounts from typepad.com, which runs on movable type, but it sounds like PHPosxom is almost where you want it to be - in which case differentiate some of your content between the two (maybe LJ for personal stuff, phposxom for dieboldesqe stuff). But whichever works for you!

[mumbly-joe.livejournal.com]

Use the livejournal!

Join us, on the dark side, and together we can rule the galaxy the Internet!!!1

--Darth Gregor

Ten votes for the blog!!

[sarawocki.livejournal.com]

Don't listen to Greg, use the blog!! Neeellllssssoooonnnn use the blog, it has much more character and when people have something really interesting to say, like me, you can just write about them in the entries themselves ;-) ohh but I don't want to see you descend into darkness just cause it's Dark and there please use the blog and keep the LJ for the evil, subversive and satisfying purpose of commenting friends-onlying etc. otherwise you may find it hard to get back!! Use the blog!! Use the blog!! Blog! blog! blog!!!

Re: Ten votes for the blog!!

[mumbly-joe.livejournal.com]

Or, you could do both at the same time, if you set up an RSS feed to your blog. Nick Ward had one for a while. Not entirely sure how much worth it, or what exactly goes into it, that's yer call.

More details here: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqcat=syn

Alternatively, you could embed your LJ in your site: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqcat=embedding
Though for free users this apparently requires using evil frames of some variant, so I'd advise against this.

**disclaimer**
I've only seen these things in passing, and have no idea what they entail, really.


--Greg, who is infinitely (okay, more like marginally) more helpful that Sarah =^)

Re: Ten votes for the blog!!

[mumbly-joe.livejournal.com]

...Okay, i'm stupid and didn't read any of the other comments. Just ingore me.

--Greg, who feels slightly foolish now

[rose_garden.livejournal.com]

I would read your RSS feed on lj if it didn't go over my quota as a free user.

Viva

right, I forgot

[skyfaller]

Hm, that's a good point, free users have problems viewing syndicated feeds unless a lot of people have already sacrificed their syndication points to make the feed popular (and therefore cost less points). That's your cue everyone, syndicate to LJ feed "nelson_blog"! But yeah, even if that feed got really popular this still would be a less than ideal solution. On the other hand, these sort of annoyances is why it is bad to get locked into a commercial solution. People should learn to set up and use their own RSS aggregators... ok, I'm a hypocrite, I have no idea how to do that. I'm going to go try and teach myself now.

Re: right, I forgot

[sinsofthedove.livejournal.com]

I am such a technical idiot. My mind is boggling right now.

[sashita.livejournal.com]

Branen was thinking out loud a while ago about having the SCCS host its own livejournals (since it's open source and all) so if that interests you, you might bring it up again.

And you can indeed do that on Livejournal with the memories section, although that's not very graceful.