Bob Stepno’s Blogsome-WordPress Blog

The Weblogs at Harvard Law network has replaced its original Userland Manila server with a WordPress server, so I have migrated my old "Red Liner" weblog to the new system. I’m still doing most of my blogging at my Other Journalism weblog, which uses Userland’s other product, Radio Userland.

Radio shares some characteristics with Manila but maintains a copy of the blog site on the user’s personal computer, along with an RSS aggregator. It also allows "categories" of blog posts to be published as separate blogs — so the "newspaper" postings from my Other Journalism weblog have a second life as a blog for the AEJMC Newspaper Division, via http://aejmc.net/newspaper/weblog

WordPress users have plenty of coaching available online, summarized here by "learningnerd": 

Welcome to WordPress.com: Beginner Resources

Her blog’s subtitle is a great one to start a semester: "One nerd’s attempt to teach herself everything — for free."

Visit her Obligatory Hello World Post to find out more about her approach.

I was annoyed at not being able to get across the city to WordCamp in San Francisco earlier this month, because of a scheduling conflict at the AEJMC convention. However, since I stumbled on Blogsome as a free WordPress hosting site, I’ll be using this blog to explore (and demonstrate) the WordPress interface. (I also might be able to convert my old RedLiner blog at Harvard from Manila to WordPress, but that’s for another day.)

I also might consider putting my own copy of WordPress on stepno.com to get a little more "administrative" experience. That’s for another day, too. (But apparently not much more than a day. Here’s a c|net video testing WordPress’s claim that the whole package can be installed in… five minutes!)

Blogsome also offers a set of fresh-looking WordPress themes… Decisions, decisions… One thing I’m sure of: I don’t like the Blogsome.com home page look, even if it is somewhat Carolina blue.

As free blog hosting services to go, Blogsome seems very easy to use and quick to set up. It uses WordPress, one of the most popular blogging engines, and one I’m thinking of as a new home for my Couranter "Other Journalism" Weblog. One intriguing feature is the ease of password-protecting a post.