I like to classify blogging platforms into three different categories:

1. Hosted blogs. These are platforms that enable you to publish content online without any real configuration or installation work on your part. You typically register with the site, enter your information, perhaps choose a theme among the few that are available, and you’re ready to blog through their web-based content management system (CMS). Examples of this type of platform are Blogger, WordPress.com, Medium, and Tumblr.
2. Self-hosted blogging software. These are typically open source CMS that can be freely installed on a server or virtual instance that you run somewhere in the cloud. WordPress (.org) is by far the most popular choice.
3. Static generators. Squarely aimed at developers and other highly technical people, static generators are a type of software that enable you to write your articles (usually in Markdown syntax) and transform them into static HTML and CSS web pages that you can then upload to a server somewhere (much like the second category presented above). Jekyll and Hexo are two somewhat popular choices, among a sea of options available on developer repository sites like Github.

Hosted Blogs

If you don’t know what Apache and Nginx are (i.e., web servers), I suggest you simply stick to hosted blogs. They are the most convenient choice and even offer an element of discoverability, allowing your content to be more easily consumed by fellow users of the platform.

The downside is that they are somewhat limited in terms of customization abilities and the sorts of features that you can enable. They’re also hosted by third parties, so if the company you decided to go with runs into technical issues (or shuts down entirely), your site will end up being offline. They usually give you a warning, but trust me, switching to a different platform and importing all the content at the last-minute is not a fun experience.

The name that I trust the most in this space is WordPress (.com). I seriously doubt Automatic (the company behind it) will go down or discontinue their service if acquired. The only issue with their hosted solution is that you’ll have to pay to customize even minimal aspects of your site (like connecting your own domain name with your blog, something you must do if you are serious about blogging).

The two free alternatives that I like the most are Blogger (by Google) and Medium. Blogger is the better product, but Google has a worrisome history of discontinuing products. Medium is a startup, and that’s a risk unto itself. I suggest that you take a look at both and make up your own mind on the subject.

Generally speaking, if you are not technical, you’ll have to trust one of these companies.

Self-hosted Blogging Software

If you are fairly technical, this option is very flexible. You can install plugins and themes to your heart’s content, especially if you opt for WordPress (.org). And if your hosting company does end up going under, you can simply backup and move over to a different host.

The only real downside here is that you need to set up and update your own server. There are hosted/managed WordPress (.org) services that simplify your life by handling most of the maintenance and system administration tasks for you, however, generally speaking, they are not cheap. On the other end of the spectrum, there is shared hosting, which is significantly more budget friendly, while also being easier to set up. They’re limited though in terms of performance and reliability (which is important if your site becomes popular). [1]

Your average developer or technical person will find this second option quite appealing.

Static Generators

Static generators give you greater control because they’re usually small enough to easily hack and get them to do whatever works best for your workflow. Certainly easier than try to tackle a mammoth project like WordPress.

On top of full control and the closer to the metal feel, you get to enjoy great performance even with cheap hosting services. You are, after all, just serving static files.

I suggest you avoid this option unless you really know what you are doing and are proficient in languages such as Ruby, Python, or server-side JavaScript (for Node.js).

Feel free to share which option you chose for your blog and why. If you are still deciding, feel free to ask questions below, and I’ll try to provide some advice for your specific situation.

For the record, my blogs use WordPress (.org) and run on a self-hosted dedicated server.

The post Which Blogging Platform Should You Choose? appeared first on Technical Blogging.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter. For example, if I’m searching for the answer to the question of how much hydrogen peroxide should you give a dog to induce vomit if they accidentally eat some dark chocolate[1], then an answer from 5 or 10 years ago is still very likely to be perfectly fine. The same is true of most history related question.

For better or worse though, I’m most apt to google for something about programming and/or technology (including electronics), so fresh information is normally the most relevant kind to me. I know for a fact that I’m not the only one who goes hunting for dates in posts as a sign of their relevancy.

A lot of popular bloggers have began to intentionally hide dates from permalinks and their pages to breath new life in their historical archive of posts. When you spent a long time writing a quality post, you really hope that it will be read and appreciated for a long time as well, and not quickly dismissed simply because it was published four years ago.

So should you date your posts or intentionally opt not to leave any clues behind?

Hide the date, and your visitors will stay on your site longer at the cost of frustrating some of them. Show the date, and others will leave right away. On the plus side though, they won’t be frustrated by not knowing whether the content is new or not.

It’s entirely up to you of course, but I have personally chosen to take a hybrid approach on this blog. I hid the date from the permalink as I think it makes the URL structure much neater. However, I have left the post template alone, and as such it includes a small date underneath the title.

This compromise allows me to address the user who wants to be informed about a post’s age, while at the same time not throwing it in everyone’s face right in the URL. Striving for honesty and usability is generally a good strategy that pays off in the long run.

If you choose to pursue the same approach, all you really have to do is change the permalink structure. In WordPress, this can be accomplished by going to Settings -> Permalinks and selecting Post name before saving changes.

Alternatively you can choose Custom Structure and input /%postname%/ for the permalink.

What’s your approach? Do you disclose the dates of your old posts?

The post Should You Disclose the Date of Your Posts? appeared first on Technical Blogging.

https://technicalblogging.com/a-new-blog-a-new-adventure/#.Tu9uCXN5vmM

My first assumption was that this was some sort of hash used by the WP Super Cache plugin, but even disabling that didn’t get rid of the issue. After investigating the code a bit, I was able to track the issue to a window.location.hash call in a JavaScript file that’s used by the Add This plugin.

Comparing the Add This settings of my various blogs, it immediately became clear that this annoyance was caused by having Track address bar shares checked. Unchecking that option got rid of the extra #. hash string.

Here are the full Add This settings I now use for this blog:

This enables Facebook, Twitter, Google+ counters within posts and pages, but not on the homepage or on other archives/categories.

Should you be experiencing this same problem, unchecking that particular setting, as you can see here, is all you need to do to remedy the issue.

The post Getting Rid of Random Characters Appended to the URLs of Your WordPress Posts appeared first on Technical Blogging.