Comments on: Reconsidering TypePad

By: Mark Boudreau

Mark Boudreau — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 16:56:01 +0000

I am a happy Typepad user and the reason I am happy is that it allows me to concentrate on writing my blog instead of coding it. I have no problem paying for the ease of use that Typepad gives me and the recent additions to the service only make things that much better. For someone who doesn’t want to have to deal with the techical minutiae of running a blog, Typepad is just the ticket.

By: Swade

Swade — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 04:58:23 +0000

Just realised my personal info on the previous comment was linked to the Typepad site that no longer functions. Now updated.

By: Swade

Swade — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 04:56:48 +0000

Hi all,

I started on Typepad and can thoroughly recommend it for ease of use and functionality. The one issue I had was bandwidth. I was fortunate in that I struck a subject that hadn’t beeen blogged and had an audience straight away. I exceeded Typepad’s bandwidth restrictions within a few months. I’ve now relocated to MT and yes, it is ominous to start with, but once you get it under control, it works pretty well.

Tip: if you migrate from Typepad to MT, use Typepad’s templates to set up your MT templates. They’re the same company, so the architecture translates prety well from one ot the other. This saved me a heap of setup time.

By: Byrne Reese

Byrne Reese — Tue, 26 Jul 2005 00:46:21 +0000

I am happy to announce that the Advanced Template documentation has been updated as well as the new CSS classes and styles:

http://help.typepad.com/tips/custom_css.html – TypePad CSS Reference Manual and Guide

http://help.typepad.com/tags/ – Advanced Template Tag documentation and new default template listing

By: Anil

Anil — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 20:36:22 +0000

Just to address the point above, we’re working hard on documenting all the new CSS and XHTML options in TypePad. But in general, we’re trying to encourage TypePad users to *not* have to think about such technical details, but rather to focus on their writing and content and let the service give them simple tools for customizing display options and tweaking settings.

In all, TypePad’s about convenience. I obviously run my main blog on Movable Type, but when I’m starting a blog for a project, I prefer TypePad to get up and running easily.

By: Sheila Martin

Sheila Martin — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:46:45 +0000

Hi Darren,

I started at TypePad and loved the clean interface and short learning curve. Then, because I knew we’d soon have many more blogs on the go, I decided to move to Movable Type. (Rather than pay $14.95/month per blog.)

But after just a week of trying MT, I’m right this minute moving my 3 current blogs back to TypePad!

MT’s code doesn’t scare me, but it was going to take a LOT of time to completely master all the Ins and Outs, and then stay on top of plug-ins and more.

So to save a few bucks a month — and get a bit more control — I’d be spending MANY hours mastering and tweaking MT. It didn’t feel like a good Return on Investment. I’d rather be creating new infoproducts, or marketing. Bottom line: I’m very happy to have made the decision to return to Typepad.

And to echo an earlier poster, the Support is first-rate. (And I notice that in the latest upgrade, they’ve added a feature I suggested to them.)

Cheers from Canada,

Sheila

By: John (SYNTAGMA)

John (SYNTAGMA) — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 10:27:17 +0000

Life’s too short for servers. Let the servants do the serving, I say. Hiring a virtual server through a host is probably marginally better than something like Typepad, but only having physical servers on your own premises gives you real control. Now why would you do that and leave yourself open to all those perverse pingers out there? Blogging is about writing, not living in an electronic Fort Knox :-)

By: Movie Posters

Movie Posters — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:40:49 +0000

geez, sorry for the typos, I think I should go to bed…

(installation, flawlessly)

By: Movie Posters

Movie Posters — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 07:37:20 +0000

I’m a WordPress user myself, and I can’t say enough about it’s ease of use and intallation, plug-in functionality, support from the community…. and you get that total control that you crave….

It’s performed flawlessy for the past year.

Gary

By: Vix

Vix — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 05:57:12 +0000

I think that TypePad is a good alternative to blogger but like Duncan, I’m too much of a control junkie to have all of my content on someone else’s server.

By: duncan

duncan — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:23:30 +0000

It might be good out of the box but is it a serious long term option, particularly given that your binding yourself to SixApart’s TOS and servers? I suppose as a control junkie that I want to have total control and you cant beat a DIY option such as WordPress or MT for my liking. Having said this, most people aren’t like me :-)

By: FMF

FMF — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 19:59:59 +0000

Darren –

Come. Join us. You don’t know the power of the Dark Side. Together, we could rule the universe!!!!!

Sorry, lost my concentration for a moment. Good thing for me that TypePad is so easy. It makes those “brain spams” a thing of the past. I love it (or at least strongly like it). :-)

FMF

By: Cary

Cary — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 17:22:49 +0000

John,

I’ve been assured that documentation for the new Tags is forthcoming, and I assume this means that I will be able to replace any of these tags with the actual code from the documentation, thus allowing for customization (though I think it was a very unfortunate oversite to change the code they offer without simultaneously documenting it for advanced users.) As I pointed out to the staff, customization of my code is the reason I pay for a PRO account in the first place. I think they just got ahead of themselves with the new update, and are scrambling to cath up. Great service overall, though : )

By: John (SYNTAGMA)

John (SYNTAGMA) — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 15:38:02 +0000

Thanks for that, Darren, I was on the point of putting my new project into Typepad, and I hear what you say. The new upgrade seems to be quite extensive. However, Cary’s point #3 has given me second thoughts. Back to the drawing board.

By: Cary

Cary — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:00:32 +0000

Hey Darren,

My blog is running on TypePad, and I’m quite happy with it’s ease of use, and it’s features. TypePad seems to be going through some growing pains, with a few new bugs popping up with the realease of their newest features, (for instance, if you leave a comment on my blog right now, and try to preview it, the preview page has lost all formatting) but I’ve found their support team is quick and helpful…not something I can always say about online entities in general ; )

I particularly like the support for categories & comment moderation, but there are a few options I’d like to see added:

1. A way to manually or automatically back-up my entire site to my local drive.
2. The ability to host my blog on my own server.
3. With their newest changes they’ve wrapped up the majority of template HTML code in tags, and so far haven’t documented what’s in those tags, so overnight they went from offering highly customizable templates, to much less so. (ie, all of the code for a post body is wrapped in one tag, so on a new TypePad blog i can’t customize this code to place an AdSense ad IN my post. Luckily, my current blog was created before this change.)

Overall it’s a great service. Hope some of this info helps!

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 14 Jul 2005 13:52:25 +0000

I’ve been contemplating whether to move to a hosting service and try my hand at MT or WordPress. Although I love BlogHarbor, I find it a bit limiting in what I want to do.