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Wordpress depressed


I just started dabbling into the other side (the Dark Side for us Blogspotters).

Yes, I confess, I have started looking to Wordpress to advance my blogging needs. It's just that people say Wordpress is where it's at if one really wants to blog. A friend of mine in Melbourne said that Wordpress users didn't have to dabble in HTML (as seen in my previous post), and that everything was done for them, just like that.

Well, I really had to check that out.

So here I am, with two new Wordpress blogs under my belt - one a mirror of this site, and the other a professional project blog for practicing and aspiring teachers and educators for us to exchange ideas and information (click on the links I have provided - one in the picture slider, and the other a free link). And guess what - This is what I found.

1) Really cool point - Wordpress has the ability not only to host blogposts, but also pages. This means it can function like a website (though with very limited functionality). If one is able to tweak it well, one could even get the feeling that the blog was not really a blog after all. However, there is a catch. I will explain shortly.

2) Really cool point - Wordpress has the ability to insert the said pages at the header, like links on a real website. It looks really cool at first glance, and would have been something I would have drooled over had I not learnt hacking Blogger HTML. As you can see in this blog here, I can do that too (albeit a bit more trial and error, thus taking a longer time to do).

3) Cool point - Wordpress templates have a distinct 'classy' feel to them.

4) Cool point - Wordpress gives you the ability to use your own domain (like my http://www.theteachertrainer.com) to host its blog. This means that you can get your blog to look like theteachertrainer.com, instead of theteachertrainer.wordpress.com.

5) Uncool point - As with all cool things in life, nothing is free. To get that .com domain hosting your Wordpress blog, it costs USD9.97, on top of the USD10.99 per year for your .com domain. Big bucks for us poor Malaysians here I'm afraid. People in the US and the UK just gobble up web domains like crazy because for them it's so cheap. For us, it's about a week's worth of food... Talk about unfair huh?

6) Really uncool point - I don't know how to bloody well do anything on Wordpress. It's like going to a foreign country without a map, or a translator. Everything is trial and error. Right now it feels like everything on Blogger is easier, as I have been blogging here for 3 years now. It should get better with time (I hope).

7) Really, really uncool point - I don't know anything about the programming language here. It's called CSS. They say it's easier, but I am banging my head on the wall every second of the day! I don't even know how to customise!

8) Really, really, really uncool point - You CAN'T CUSTOMISE unless you already host your own site, where you can host your Wordpress blog, instead of using Wordpress's own server. This means you would have to fork out about USD10 per month, which would mean about USD120 per year, which would be around RM430. Even the most basic code hacks cannot be done without this!

Verdict - It may be simple to start a basic Wordpress blog, but if you have started dabbling in HTML for your Blogger and are used to having the freedom to shape your blog however you want, then Wordpress may feel like a bit of a let-down.

Unless you have at least RM600 a year to burn of course... Learning downtime not included...


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Cat-from-Sydney said…
Aaah...no such thing as a free meal nowadays... Hmmm....more computer jargons. I'm going back to sleep. purrr...meow!
April 23, 2010 at 2:23 PM
Nor Fadzleen said…
I've tried both Blogspot and Wordpress. Blogspot is more user-friendly when it comes to tweaking your html coding and revamping your layout. I do feel Wordpress has interesting GUI. Yes, it took me awhile to dabble with the CSS. A painstaking process indeed. I like the slideshow feature. It's similar to one of Joomla's plugins... it looks professional and it's easy to set up. My take on this, blogspot wins hands down.
April 23, 2010 at 6:33 PM
Abdullah Mohd Nawi said…
Cat - Bravo... At least u tried to make send of some of it! Yayyy!!!

Leen - I know exactly what you mean. I'm still tryin to see why so many bloggers are raving about wordpress, though I myself have bought a domain to host a wordpress site. Can u write HTML? I still can't. Don't even ask about Javascript.. The picture slider I actually JavaScript that came with the template. What I generally do is from the templates I reverse engineer to make my blog do what I want I to do.. Sometimes I'm lucky and other times not so.. I must admit even I have lost countless hours of sleep mulling over the codes, there is a great sense of satisfaction when you are able to modify them to your liking :)
April 23, 2010 at 7:41 PM
Anonymous said…
haha.. poor dolah. i totally understood when you tried to dig up all those 'cool' tools inside wordpress gadgets.

i have never experienced the sort of depression that u went through. it works just fine for me for two years. the secret - i'm just a light end-user who doesn't need to customize much. why should I bother about fancy technology when all that I need is a basic template to express my thoughts? (read: who needs a new version of iphone when you are already happy with an old version? hehe)

having said that, i'm just a happy wordpress user. it's just a matter of taste. (oh yes, i paid the annual 'rent' too, no complain :-))
April 24, 2010 at 2:04 AM
Anonymous said…
ops sorry for the repetition. it's not the sign of rage. just delete them ok :)
April 24, 2010 at 2:06 AM
Abdullah Mohd Nawi said…
Hahahaha!!! Rage of the Wordpress user.. hehehe.. No worries mie ;)
I'm actually starting to enjoy making pages in Wordpress now..hehehe... Simple ones with simple links of course.. nothing as fancy as what I have on Blogger!
April 24, 2010 at 3:22 AM
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