Geeklog Forums

A potential client wanted a site with Movable Type. I have other sites with Geeklog. So, in the interest of good customer relations I loaded the current open source version of Movable Type and tested a couple blogs.

However, after research, I found that MT requires editing their cloned pages just to add content to a sidebar. Now, I don't mind editing HTML except for the time involved.

BUT, with Geeklog all I would need to do is use Static Pages to quickly develop content to place anywhere on the site. I thought for certain a product with a reputation like Movable Type would have that feature.

I guess MT is a good product with a big reputation, but, without a feature like Static Pages it falls short in my book. I know the Geeklog Core Team doesn't like to disparage other products and I don't mean to do that to MT.

What I don't understand is why Geeklog doesn't rate the BIG reputation of Movable Type since it has all of the features of MT and MORE!

:banana:

Well, if there would have been a really famous Geeklog powered site, as well known as Problogger or Engadget, Geeklog would have established a completely different reputation...

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking:
www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

I was wrong to use "reputation". Geeklog has an excellent technical reputation as a CMS/Weblog. So, it is not so much "reputation", as such, but things like: notoriety or "press coverage" in the open source CMS/Weblog field.

Another thing I see is that the ongoing Wordpress versus Movable Type confrontation seems to sideline Geeklog. Folks see these two as the only alternatives and neglect to look at Geeklog.

Just an observation...

Yeah, that was also what I meant with reputation: GL is an excellent CMS/blog system, but MT and WP are so often covered in the media that others have no chance. However, also Drupal is becoming quite popular the last months, but seems to be a bit slow in heavy traffic sites.

The amount of excellent themes, and the free Wordpress.com service, is something GL still lacks. I'm glad GL is getting a few nice themes the last time.

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking:
www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

Hi,

We can make some communication about Geeklog to extend the "reputation". We are a small community but everyone know a newspaper speaking about php and cms or a web portal. We could made a press release and send it to each contact?

Another way, Geeklog is available with Fantastico, and we know Fanstico install is not "clean". Can we work with Fantastico Team to make better Geeklog install and update?

::Ben

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I'm available to customise your themes or plugins for your Geeklog CMS

The customer is always right (well, nearly always);


I beg to differ. The widgets of mt are really really nice to use. They are very thoroughly commented and have a nice macro system that make them really easy to use for non-geeks. You have syntax-highlighting on the editor, the available options are to your right. IMO mt looks much more appealing to the non-geek than gl. It has nice 'graphical' 'wow' effects, that sells good. The devil is in the details and mt is really really polished.



Well, gl is appeling to other people. Mt appeals to non-technical people because it looks simpler and the management tools are nicer. Plus it runs better on the same hardware because once you publish something it gets saved as pure html content, no dynamic content. Gl offers maybe too many features that most non-tech bloggers do not want, need or understand ;-)

1. Content is king. Way too much "polished" stuff on this Internet with content taking a back seat.

2. The GL Professional theme files can be quickly modified to accommodate any need for "eye candy".

3. Caching lib is available for GL.

4. The plugins for GL are high in quality & actually work. Certain CMS/blog products boast of many plugins but most need extensive help to work correctly.

5. The Forum plugin is a BIG selling point for GL. Once installed this integrates directly into GL, rather than using a complicated "bridge" which is hideous to maintain.

6. The spam control features available for GL are unsurpassed.

7. GL security is the best. Potential clients are sent to search securityfocus.com & compare the vulnerability incidents by product adjusted for time in the open source arena.

8. Support on this site is quick & accurate. Curious though, I rarely ask here for support because the docs & site search return the answers I need.

9. GL contractors/consultants are available for reasonable $.

10. PERL is old & settled, but, PHP was developed precisely for the web.

11. We need the "too many" features in GL.

Have you seen this new one? www.xtranormal.com

Maybe soon a famous Geeklog powered site

See this nice video made in 10 minutes.

::Ben

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I'm available to customise your themes or plugins for your Geeklog CMS

I do agree with you.

I have been use Wordpress, Joomla before, but finally I'm stop at Geeklog.

one more plugin that I looking for right now was: "Video Gallery". if some one who can make this happen to GL community it will be appreciate.

thanks.

Hello hfd,

Media Gallery can make a nice video gallery. Do you need specific options?

::Ben

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I'm available to customise your themes or plugins for your Geeklog CMS

yes, I would like to see the video gallery section look like youtube style.

thanks.

It's a theme issue. Maybe we can do this theming for the next MG release.

Can you tell me what you need exactly?

::Ben

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I'm available to customise your themes or plugins for your Geeklog CMS

we're talking about blogs here, not about doctoral thesis. Some blogs are more interesting than others, but they remain blogs.

well, you were the one complaining about having to modify something (having to edit html]; all of a sudden this is not a problem, curious.

yes, but not standard installed. Again, stuff for techs, not for normal people.

so? what problems have you had with plugins from movabletype? Was this supposed to be an argument?

again, is this supposed to be an argument? MT has plugins too: http://plugins.movabletype.org/ ; you'd better be better informed next time you try to give arguments ;-)

never heard of akismet, I presume.

everytime I hear somenone say this I have to laugh. Were you implying that movabletype has more securityproblems? On what facts do you base that?

a community is nice, but good documentation is just expected. Nothing to see here.

so are movabletype consultors. Your point being?

??? are you being serious here? Is this supposed to be a plus point of gl? Most php code (fortunately not GL's,) is of dubious quality and many of the hacking problems of linux servers are due to poor coding practices of the php developers. I would not use this as an plus point.

you may, but most people don't; that was my point. Most people do not want to have all this. They just want to blog :-)

Besides that, I can tell you a few things GL does not have:
* support for multiple blogs (one geeklog installation, thousands of blogs with that installation); now, _that_ is enterprise ready. (and no, do not tell me to go look at this: http://www.geeklog.net/faqman/index.php?op=view&t=17, this does not scale. Simple go to the dashboard, clik new blog, fill a name, a folder in your file system and off you go, new blog.
* standard wysiwyg editing of entries (it is simply not there in a GL installation, you need a plugin, why o why?);
* it is not packaged in any of the main linux distros (being an admin, yes, this is really important: I need to have updates of the software I use without having to go the extra mile);

Enough, it will look like I do not like GL; I do! I've used it for 5 years. What irritates me is reading stuff about other systems which is simply not true. If you do not want to use, by all means, use GL, but do not critisize whay you clearly don't know.

So, take this as a bug report and improve GL to take it where MT already is :-), to the top.

My list of GL qualities is not an argument, simply facts. The top of the blog software group is Wordpress and clearly running many more blogs than MT. I know enough about MT to criticize it and will continue to do so. If you are so "irritated" you can try to stop my criticism of MT.

That is what I am doing, trying to stop you from misinforming people about MT :p

Look, you wrote it yourself: people only look at WP or MT. There is a reason for that. Even if you try to switch between either of the 2, you get official support from both (no unoffical hacks). Just look at the docs. It's all in there. No, GL is not in those docs. So it is not (yet) in the top of the blogging software.

You are obviously entitled to your opinions, but as long as they are not supported by facts, do not expect to convince anyone. So far, no facts shown here that GL is better than MT, on the contrary. If you want to use GL, by all means, do it; please do not misinform people about products you obviously do not know well enough. Thanks.

@anonymous: please register, log in and reply with your (user)name. This topic is becoming a bit unfriendly, so I feel it's not very polite to reply anonymously. No offense, since we all have our own opinion about MT, WP and GL.

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Dutch Geeklog sites about camping/hiking:
www.kampeerzaken.nl | www.campersite.nl | www.caravans.nl | www.caravans.net

I`m afraid the discussion on 'which system is better' is a first class source of trouble. Best thing is to stick to comparing systems without evaluation or criticism. :chestslam:

There is always a user group that has special needs and prefers the one or the other stuff. IMHO Geeklog is a system that is made for a bit more experienced webmasters who like linux and have used another system before.

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BTW multi deployment is possible in this way (GL 1.4.1):
http://www.geeklog.net/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=1&showtopic=62504 You will get many independent GL with one set of files. You only have to double the config.php individually. If you are really planing a commercial project with 1000 sites you will have to consider a lot of things.

My orientation for GL is more than blogs. GL offers blog functionality and CMS+ functions. GL is the superior CRM app and perfect for special interest sites like groklaw.net. GL gives the SOHO a competitive edge with their customers.

Recreational blogging has peaked, the trend is to recreational "social networking" now. "Most people" who start a recreational blog (the vast majority) drop the activity after 2 to 3 months. No appreciable return on time and resource investment for this as a hobby.

In the interest of fairness I decided to increase my due diligence investigation of MT. If you read many WP forums there is great animosity toward MT. I wondered what could cause this. A further review of MT history revealed events that caused this and began the decline of MT. Poor management decisions are responsible for the decline of many companies when they enter a new product space. The results of two MT management decisions are a textbook example of this phenomenon.

A hideous MT management decision in 2004 to begin a paid version of MT caused the majority of the MT user base to flock to WP. In addition, this year, MT management broke a cardinal rule of the open source space. When a crucial WP update was to be issued MT management posted a request that asked WP users to move to MT rather than do the WP upgrade.

In the OS space, product teams do not interfere in that manner with another product. The result was further energy infused into the WP team by this behavior. Now MU and Buddypress seem poised to propel WP to the top of the recreational "social networking" arena.

The evidence on Google Trends is incontrovertible. The MT decline is stark when Google Trends is used to reveal the precipitous drop in the charts for MT. GL remains at a steady straight line with its loyal user base. The downward trend of the MT line is a shock. While at the same time the WP line soars upward. All this is available for review.

The reason MT was placed in open source is self-evident. The original paid license scheme in 2004 failed. Now, MT management wants to drive MT OS users to MT Pro and a costly license scheme so the users would pay to get recreational "social networking". It backfired. The move only spurred the WP team and others to increase the functionality of WP with MT Pro features. This reality should lead MT management to revise their product business plan since WP is in the ascendancy.

Given the above facts, way too much bandwidth on this GL forum has been wasted on MT. Users beginning a blog should use GL. If they are drawn to WP or MT they must know that MT OS is a front for a commercial company with a suspect history. Those who want quality "social networking" features will find them on the WP MU/Buddypress OS platform at the end of 2008.

Will post this information on other forums so consumers are aware of MT's pernicious history.

It is always interesting to know backgrounds but even more interesting to know the backgrounds of backgrounds to understand better.

Anyway, I also looked at MT a little and found their showcase quite nice: http://www.movabletype.com/showcase/ Blogs like this http://thewip.net/ or this http://www.thelobby.com/ are quite impressive. I just wondered what is there that can`t be achived with GL? Hm, what is meant by "multiple blogs", is that more or less an author`s "topic" in GL : With this little hack one can even give each topic a completely different appearance: http://www.geeklog.net/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=10&showtopic=81100

The most interesting fact I found was that MT once changed its name from Serge. The name MT is more self explanatory than Serge. That`s one big disadvantage of GL.

The "Geeklog" name does take some work to get by as certain folks are put off. However, as the words, "geek", "nerd", etc. become more generally accepted in the culture, hopefully, the name will not be an impediment for these folks. GL sells itself for the features mentioned. Also, looking forward to the results of the Summer of Code being incorporated. The GL future looks good from my perspective.