Blog Design Solutions

I would like to start by saying this is a book about setting up and running your own blog. If you don't want to get into the design aspects and coding a blog, then you will not like this book as it is not for the people who simply want a setup like blogger. One thing this book does well is give you an idea of 4 major packages for blog development and one chapter for writing your own engine. The 4 main packages are: Movable type seems capable but for some reason it just didn't interest me. It's a little more work then using blogger but I don't know. Wordpress seems to offer much more. ExpressionEngine is a rather robust package. To me it's for the people who really want to tinker with the guts of a setup. Might be overkill for many bloggers. Wordpress is a rather nice package which I am told is heavily used. It appears easy to use and setup. To me it seems more people that want to tinker a little bit but want an easy way to do things. I am considering this for my company. Textpattern seems to be geared towards running a blogging site. It's appears very versatile and seems to organize things really well. I am considering this when I become more advanced at blogging. The last chapter shows you how to write your own engine. This would be a fun little programming exercise that I will do at a later date! Overall this is a great little book that will answer questions on design. It will definitely answer your question of if you want to host your own versus using something like blogger.

Chapter seven.."write your own blog engine" alone is worth the price of the book. If you are a beginning to intermediate php "developer" and want to learn how to build a useful expandable CMS and blog, then buy this book. No goofy writer promoting their buddies add on products here. You get the information and clear guidance you need to build your own system. I do stress that you should know some php to tackle chapter seven. If you do you can will see the flexiblity in the system and be able to take the blog engine presented in the book to new levels. Even if you don't know php, but can follow instructions you will build a blog that is as good as any packaged deal available. If you are fuzzy on page layouts and css, this book will help clear it up. If you are interested in writing your own software instead of reengineering someone elses then get this book. If you want to make one of the popular packaged blog engined uniquely your own, then buy this book. It teaches how to do just that.

Bought this book mainly for Simon Collision's chapter on ExpressionEngine. Really helpful; love the way he imparts info. EE's worth paying for, definitely, but its creators also offer a completely robust free version. Free as in free, not a trial. Careful, though - you'll want to upgrade to the licensed version after working with EE for a bit. ;)

I just finished reading this tome of knowledge, and all I can say is: Wow. I was a little worried at first, when the book opened with the definition of a "web log," that perhaps this would be geared too much towards beginners, but by the time I made it all the way through, I knew my initial assumption was wrong. If this were an O'Reilly book, it would no doubt be titled Blogging: the Definitive Guide. Blog Design Solutions is characterized by the literary flair typical of books published by Friends of ED. The list of authors includes many of the big names in the world of blogging and design: Andy Budd, Simon Collison, Chris J. Davis, Michael Heilemann, John Oxton, David Powers, Richard Rutter and Phil Sherry. I for one am thankful that Phil Sherry decided to follow through on this book idea, and that he rounded up such knowledgeable people to help him with the task. This fearless group of world citizens takes you through the very basics of how blogs (web logs) came about, all the way through to writing your own content management system, touching on just about everything in between. Ch. 4: For me, this book really begins on page 114, not because the previous chapters aren't worth reading, but this is when Simon Collison unleashes his ExpressionEngine expertise with a fury. It should be noted that since the writing of this book, the EE Core now can be used free of charge for personal or non-profit purposes. So, you can safely disregard the section about the Trial Version and the Zend Optimizer, because this has essentially been replaced by the new EE Core. pMachine cares about people, even giving away $15,000 for their shootout. It is refreshing to see a company make its licensing more user-friendly rather than the inverse (as was the case with MovableType). Ever since then, I've been tinkering with EE and wanting to learn more about it, to use for churches. This system is so robust and flexible, it could probably benefit from having an entire book. Collinson curbs his enthusiasm well though, and manages to pack quite a bit of information into his single allotted chapter. With so many other great CSS books and resources out there, I was glad that he focused mainly on how EE actually works. It has a very intuitive tag scheme, making setting up templates more streamlined. Add to that unlimited custom fields, and it's quite a package. Aside from calling American football "rubbish" (p.147) this was a good chapter. Ch. 5: From a pure entertainment standpoint, chapter five takes the cake. Chris J. Davis and Michael Heilemann paint a beautiful word picture of a promised land "filled with rivers of chocolate, fluffy bunnies to frolic with, and WordPress support." It's not all fun and games though, because these guys delve right into the code, and really show you how to get the most out of this open-source publishing platform. If you are one of many people who use WP for a personal blog, but are intimidated by what's "under the hood," fear not. This