Cross-posted at Dreams Into Lightning - TypePad.
Yes, it's true: I've opened a TypePad account and Dreams Into Lightning has now entered a new incarnation.
The move was prompted by the recent meltdown at Blogger, but I'd been contemplating opening a new front for a while for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are complaints against Blogger and some are not:
- Blogger style buttons don't work with Safari. I don't know whether the blame rests with Blogger or with Apple for this (you can be sure each side will say it's the other's fault) but I am getting tired of the Blogger tech support people telling me to switch to Firefox. I have my gripes about Safari (and Apple in general), but the one feature of Safari I find absolutely indispensable is the built-in RSS feed in Tiger. It speeds and simplifies the blogging process beyond description, and it's the one feature, the proverbial "killer app", that outweighs the many shortcomings of Safari. These advantages are partially offset when I don't have formatting buttons and have to apply style tags manually by copying them from a template. With TypePad, the buttons work and that drawback is eliminated.
- I've said before that I see Dreams Into Lightning as mainly a text-based blog, but I like having the option of posting images if I need to.
- My current Blogger template has grown cluttered and cumbersome (obviously I'm responsible for that, not Blogger) and it's taking a long time to load. I kinda like the idea of starting out with a clean slate.
- More built-in features: category archiving (Blogger keeps promising but doesn't deliver), blogrolling, and a basic stat counter.
- I'm using one of the oldest Blogger templates, which apparently doesn't support newer features like auto-trackbacking. (I tried to add the code manually by following Blogger's directions, but the attempt was evidently a failure as the feature is still not working here.) Also Quick Editing doesn't work, and I really need it to, because I've got over 1,500 posts here and it's a real headache if I have to make a correction on an old post.
- I like the idea of having a backup. If one blogging tool is down (either TypePad or Blogger), I'll still be able to post on the other.
Posting will continue normally here at Blogger for the foreseeable future. But you might want to think about adding Dreams Into Lightning - TypePad to your bookmarks. I'm still exploring the features of TypePad, so the new site is still "under construction" but fully operational. Don't feel bad if I haven't added your blog to the sidebar yet, I probably just haven't gotten to it. Also, keep watching the new site because I may start posting extra material there.
One more time, that link: Dreams Into Lightning - TypePad.
