My previous post where I mentioned WordPress reminded me that I really needed to offer my opinions about these two very popular OpenSource platforms in relation to blogging.  I used WordPress for over two years as my blogging solution. I set up Joomla just to play with the CMS system and learn about it and realized that maybe I could combine my blog posts along with what had become my personal site where I shared photos with friends and family.  Along this journey, I came to realize some advantages and disadvantages to these two platforms, thus my opinions  on the two now . . . . 

WordPress is a force, there is no doubt!  They now offer free servers and accounts to get you started.  And if your very raw to the whole blogging thing, my up front suggestion would be to head on over to WordPress and sign up!  But if you have access to your own server and are going to install one of these to accomplish your goal of successfully blogging, lets hold up and talk about a few things.

Ask yourself what you want to accomplish!  If you just want to offer your thoughts mostly in the form of text, then WordPress is the easist way to do it!  You basically log in, offer your thoughts, and hit the save button and it appears on your page! And if you want more, there are all kinds of plug ins to extend its capabilities. But if you want to do more than just blog, and do things on a grander scale, Joomla is certainly the way to go.  Because its so much more powerful, its going to take more effort to get it rolling however.  And its very much supported by all kinds of third party solutions to make things happen.  The main difference between the two is that WordPress was designed from the ground up to do blogs!  Joomla on the other hand is designed from the ground up to be a Content Management system.  And  managing content expands much beyond blogs, to include media, and the layout, and to create mailing lists and community.  There are some advantages and disadvantages to the Joomla solution.  One is "ping".  WordPress got this one right as it pings Technorati as soon as you post something.  Joomla is more of a manual process. You can literally spend days setting up and reconfiguring the look of Joomla!  Some might hate this, but others will love it! But for sure, Joomla gives you much more control over your content!  How it looks, the lay-out and more!  Plus, Joomla offers new menu buttons to point to new components such as Photo Albums, and on and on and on.  WordPress will do a lot but you usually accomplish this through a plug that often is a snippett of code that you embedded in your page. 

The biggest complaints I have with these platforms as blogs:

• WordPress: It seems that spammers zoom in on the comment path and start spamming your comments section.  It might not be bad at first but it ends up over time to where I was getting 70-80 spams a day.  Now I had these comments set for me to approve, so they were easy to delete, but it stil took time.  Then I got the idea to block certain IP addresses because of the amount of spam they were sending me.  This still took major time and was a constant battle. The only way to stop the spam was to close the item entirely of comments, and isn't that the whole purpose of a blog?  And as I mentioned, many of the plug-ins were clunky to install and get to function properly. I am not uncomfortable doing most of these, and I still messed up my templates a few times by getting things out of order . . . 
•  Joomla!: Its not so automatic! To get blogs to places like Technorati will require that you manually ping them.  This isn't a big deal, but it still requires that I do it! Joomla is not set up for people to add comments out of the box either. So this means that you will need to install a third party solution so that others can add comments.  I am using an app now that needs captcha input from the poster before it will take. Since the hacker gained access to my site and deleted several things, I haven't recieved ANY messages, so I am not sure if this is a turn off or not . . .  I do know I like not having to delete about 400 spams once a week however! 
  

And those are things such as the fact that I can install so many things to expand Joomla to be a very powerful personal site.  Now I am telling you!  If you want to keep it simple and just spend your time offering up a blog topic, WordPress is the king!  But if you are looking to expand your blog to do many amazing things beyond blogs, Joomla is amazing!  Just be aware that many of these third party add ons can leave security holes as I have experienced on several of my Joomla sites. But the bottom line here is that I very much enjoy all the options that Joomla offers me! The ability to easily change the look and feel.  The joy I get out of designing and tweaking templates.  In short, I love Joomla! The ability to expand its capabilities in an easy way by installing new components and modules is a much more powerful solution! 

So here is my suggestion for anyone looking to blog . . . If you want to keep it simple, WordPress is the way to go.  Log on, write your thoughts, and publish!  You can't beat simple.  If your wanting to do a little more and expand with the abilities of Sections and menu buttons dedicated totally to other things outside of a web log, Joomla will be much more effort up front, but its easily managed going forward . 

During all the iPhone mania, buried deep in the "other news" Palm announced that it would be next year before it would release its new LInux OS! I am starting to grow weary of this very stale OS . . . .  Look around and you will see HTC turning out some pretty incredible WM devices.  Now Apple comes along and on its first try, really does some pretty neat things . .  Its hard for me to get excited when Palm continues to take my 10 year old interior, and put it in a new package with new paint and expect me to pay a new price for it . . .  Add to that the fact that AT&T can\\'t offer High speed data for a Palm Treo, and the frustration level rises.  I look at the Cingular 8525.  This device out of HTC's WM factory is a whole lot of device!  A big, beautiful  screen, slide out keyboard, AND HSDPA for $300 with a two year!  

So why haven\\'t I switched already? Why didn\\'t I jump on the iPhone bandwagon?  Why haven\\'t I taken the WM HTC plunge? Well, there are two things about the Treo that I am not sure I can live without . . . The first is the keyboard right on the front of the device!  This sort of thing can\\'t be discounted!  This is the design that just seems to work for me!  Its about the only thing about the Blackberry that I like!  It is quick and right there.  No sliding to access, and thumb-typing ain\\'t bad!  I input a lot of text in a typical day using email, IM\\'s, documents and notes.  I like this design!  The other is Chatteremail!  Chatter is, as I have said many times in the past, one of the most powerful apps you will ever find on ANY Smartphone. This is one area about the iPhone that really turns me off!  Its idea of IMAP email reminds me a whole lot of Versamail for the Treo!  In short, its a joke . .  To many, its not, but if you have ever experienced Chatter with IMAP accounts, you know what I am talking about. . . .   WM mail is no better.

But how much longer can the Treo design and one great app keep me here? Here is what I am telling myself: I am giving Palm until April of next year to show me their Linux Treo!  If its announced, but not out, I am gone! If the thumbkeys are gone, then so am I!  With the total lack of innovation for the last 7 years, (since the 600 was introduced) I am not waiting any longer!  What will I move to? Right now, I don\\'t know . .  But my eyes are starting to wonder and the grass is certainly looking greener in the iPhone and WM camps . . . 

So I was surfing Youtube looking for Mountain biking videos . . . I found some and these had to hurt, because it hurts me just watching them!

My son was in from Colorado and the last couple of days I grabbed some shots of him.  I am still messing with the correct settings to get the video from the device to the web.

This new HTC TyTN II certainly catches my eye!  I like this phone!!!

I admit, I am not a big fan of "look at my photos on my phone" type of guy. In fact, I am more of a "look at my photos on my website" type of guy!  But with that said, I won a contest over at Palm Discovery and got a free copy of this app.  I installed it, and I have been amazed at what a great app this really is!  This is without a doubt the most feature rich photo album available for Palm OS.   I have looked at the competition and nothing compares to this one!  Besides being a photo album, it also includes some editing capabilities.  Things like Crop and Rotation, image brighten, and darken.  

You can even play music in the background while you play a slide show!  And there are multiple views on how to search for photos.  One feature that I really like is the "favorites" folder.  You can place your most favorite photos in this folder!  Of course, its got that explorer type of view so that you can search your card as well as the device very quickly.  And you have different "fade" effects as you go from one photo to another. 

The Bottom line here is this:  If you need a photo viewer for your Treo, look no further than this one!

Also, when you install an app on your Treo to try it out, decide you don't like it, and you delete it right?  Then later on, you notice that your memory isn\\'t what it should be, and you investigate to find that when you deleted that app, it had a lot of associated databases that didn\\'t delete.  zLauncher manages this very accurately, and makes getting rid of unwanted apps a very easy process.  Its also a Filemanager.  Now for a long time, I used FileZ to accomplish these sort of tasks.  But after installing zLauncher, I realized I no longer needed this app. What I love about zLauncher is that I can install an app direct to my Treo, select the app, by holding it down with the stylus, and getting a menu.  One of the menus asks me if I would like to move the app to the card?  I say, yes, and it happens, leaving only a very small shortcut on my Treo.  It also has the ability to support 3rd party plug-ins, but in all honesty, these are not a very large selection to choose from currently.  I have a "calendar" plug-in as well as one that supports the freeware break-out game "Hardball."

But what zLauncher gives me is customization!  And I mean customization! Suppose when you opened your Homepage, all you wanted to see is your 5 main apps!  Create a new "tab", move those 5 apps and tell zLauncher that this is the "default" page. If your left-handed like I am, you will love the fact, that zLauncher has a left-handed button that allows you to move the scroll bar from the right hand side of the screen to the left hand side. Choose between "large" and "small" icons. Or even a list! Got a picture of a loved one that you would like to see everytime you open zLauncher? You can load that picture as a background!   Got several pictures?  Pick one for each "Tab" that you create!

You have the ability to show/hide all kinds of icons and short-cuts.  And the top and bottom task bars can be set to "transparent" to fade various elements. And you can further customize across Tabs.  For example, my calendar function is set to only appear on certain screens.  And there are all kinds of themes available for zLauncher.  Many of them are freeware and can be found at any Palm Freeware site. There are also some really nice themes that you can buy.