Review: WordPress

Well, I’m starting this weblog with the idea of bringing to the people my view of the Web and other stuffs. I’ll make reviews of websites, software (maybe hardware), music albums and movies.

So, let’s get started. Nothing better for a start review, then my favorite publishing platform, Wordpress. After using a lot of other platforms (Blogger, Typepad, Movable Type), I gave a chance for Wordpress and I have to tell you that I’m very surprised.

In Wordpress you can make a simple and efficient weblog with almost no work, or you can build a powerfully and complex weblog with a little bit of work. You can choose one of the many templates around, or you can make your own (if you know a little bit of PHP, CSS and of course, HTML). One good idea is to make your own blog design, its to customize an advanced template like K2 (see K2 exclusive features). I you use K2, and have some CSS knowledge, you can easily make your blog looks totally different from the others. In other hand, you can edit a “normal” theme, but it requires more knowledge than only CSS.

K2 exclusive features:

• Upload and manage custom headers.
• Sidebar Modules comes bundled (with special K2 modules) and support WordPress Widgets.
• Live comment posting.
• Livesearch.
• Rolling Archives.
• Dozens of plugins supported out-of-the-box.
  

Another interesting Wordpress characteristic is the use of plugins. The Wordpress plugins can make almost everything you can imagine in a blog. Users all around the world make their own plugin and make it available for you, so there’s a large plugin database. Also, in Wordpress, if you choose a “widget ready” theme, you can add a lot of things to your sidebar. Like Flickr photos, RSS, del.icio.us bookmarks, etc.

If you have your own host and wanna try Wordpress, click here. If you don’t have a host, you can get your free Wordpress blog here.

Pros:

A lot of templates and sidebar widgets;

Detailed Statistics about your blog and your RSS feed (Wordpress.Com feature);

Categories, making easy to organize your blog posts;

Password option for specific posts;

Great comments system;

Can import your posts from almost any other publishing platforms;

FREE
Cons:

Can’t import from another Wordpress blog (only with plugins);

Version 2.0 have some trackback problems;

Rating:

[rating:4.5]
Recommended

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