this is a post from google docs

Believe it or not, you can now post to your blog from within Google Docs & Spreadsheets. It all seems to work too. Considering that the last post was from Word 2007, which has fantastic support for blogging built-in, it does seem that the days of specialist blogging tools will soon be over. I do prefer the interface that Word gives you, as you get a visual representation of how your post will look when it’s published, but Google Docs is free, and available anywhere you have a browser. Now I know you can post to WordPress from anywhere with its own built-in tools, but its nice to be able to work on stuff and then upload it when you’re ready.

website redesign

The redesign of the website is almost complete. The site is based on WordPress, which I thoroughly recommend, using a K2 based theme called Unsleepable, produced by Ben Gray. I am very happy, it looks very clean. There is a bit of tweaking to do in the toolbar on the right, but that can be sorted. I know that I have changed the theme twice in the last few months but each of the earlier versions, whilst being very nice (and most importantly, stable) didn’t quite “fit”. This new theme fits very well, and although there are some odd side effects with older posts it does seem to work very well.

Another thing that I might do in a few months time is move the whole thing to be hosted by WordPress.com. The idea is not unthinkable. There are compelling reasons for doing so. The first and most obvious reason for me is storage costs. Now I don’t know about you users in the US, but we in the UK are being ripped off. My provider charges me about £90 ($173 U.S. dollars) per year for 300MB of storage and the hosting. On the other hand, WordPress will host my site (OK I have to use their built-in tools) and point it back at my domain, with 1GB of storage, for £10.36 ($20 U.S. Dollars). You do the math. I would have to pay another £7 to get the ability to hack the CSS, but that’s worth it. Another reason is bandwidth. I wouldn’t have to think about that, as WordPress.com would take of all that for me. And their servers would do all the load balancing and stuff. The list goes on. I am seriously thinking about this, as it would mean that I could concentrate on the content, and less on the day-to-day maintenance of a website.