I've enabled gzip compression on most pages on this blog. This should be seamless to everyone, but please let me know if you get an error message that might be related. Amazingly, all I had to do was add
<? ob_start("ob_gzhandler"); ?>
to every page. You can test the results at the web page compression tester.
I've pretty much decided that I'm going to port Discourse.net to WordPress fairly soon. Why?
1. The sp*m-fighting tools available to me on that platform are a whole lot better than what I'm using now.
2. It will standardize me on one platform — every other blog-related project I do, from class blogs to Jotwell is on WordPress, and it will be a little easier to have that consistency.
3. I've gotten tired of the current dowdy look, and changes will be easier on WordPress, which supports themes (and widgets) much better than this ancient version of Movable Type.
The move raises three issues I need to resolve:
First, how to convert the archives to be compatible with the new system while maintaining compatibility for existing incoming links. That problem is complicated a bit by my frequent use of Textile 2 formatting when I write posts. It's not real clear to me that wordpress has a functioning and maintained plugin for this — it's Textile 2 plugin seems like it might be a bit of an orphan. I may have to hire help for this.
Second, what should I use for the new design? (I realize most readers use the RSS feeds these days, but I still care.) Graphic design is not my strong suit. Suggestions? Please?
Third, how will my shared server react to a blogging platform that serves up each page individually rather than creating static pages? WP-Super Cache here we come…
