We talked about a To-Do list just one post before this one, and thought of sharing our To-Do list, but just for this blog. If you’ve been a regular of the previous design, you would have noticed several features missing in this incarnation - namely, feed aggregation from the rest of the is-there blogs, and a suitable blogroll.

Hence our To-Do list:

1. Dedicated feed aggregation page. Given our love for 2-column designs, it isn’t likely that we’ll be adding a third column just for is-there feeds. Therefore, it is likely that we’ll setup a separate feed aggregation page which will serve your needs better.
2. Dedicated links page. While this isn’t a network at all, we’re thinking of putting up a links page for the is-there blogs, rather than just stuff them in the sidebar. Though it is likely we’ll still add a footer blogroll to share the Google PageRank juice from the index page.
3. Header bar design. We’re thinking of adding a header bar (not a header replacement) above the normal header itself. It’ll be something like a navigation bar, so nothing surprising there. Among the pages that will be linked to include an advertiser’s destination page, design notes, and probably a couple of FAQs.

And… that’s it for now.

Given the recent migration of this blog from Drupal to WordPress, we thought now would be the right time to post about the various blog platforms used by all, or at least, most of the is-there blogs.

Here goes:

1. is-there:   WordPress 2.0.1 (previously Drupal)
2. Anime Field:   WordPress 1.5
3. The Acer Blog:   WordPress 1.5
4. House of Dell:   WordPress 2.0
5. GuPiano:   WordPress 2.0
6. EssayRep:   WordPress 1.5
7. FMAccounting:   WordPress 2.0.1
8. Towards Uni:   Movable Type 3.2
9. Lasik World:   Movable Type 3.2
10. CDC:   Movable Type 3.2
11. ZMAng.CV.vc:   Blog:CMS

As you can see, most of the is-there blogs are running WordPress - with quite a few of them still at WP 1.5. This does mean that upgrades to WP 2.0.1 are on our to-do list, but…

At this stage, you must have noticed that is-there.net has migrated from Drupal to WordPress. Why? Well, we have a number of reasons, some petty, to a few rather major ones:

1. Drupal’s anti-spam modules were failing on us. Even with both the Bad Behavior and Spam modules installed and activated, spam bots were still hitting on the site. Customizing the modules was possible, but…
2. Drupal wasn’t the most suitable CMS for a relatively non-group blog like this one. Generally, CMSes like Drupal are used for community sites and group blogs like Performancing, due to the multitude of features provided for such applications.
3. Drupal: Feed updating through cron jobs wasn’t working. Wierdly, the daily feed updates weren’t going through, forcing manual updates - which if you noticed, were occuring sporadically. WordPress offers plugins that work out-of-the-box, though it must be said that substantial effort was made in trying to get Drupal’s aggregator and aggregator2 modules to work properly.
4. Drupal was relatively CPU intensive - This isn’t really new if you’ve been keeping up with the Drupal forum. We’ve noticed a few threads addressing Drupal’s relatively high CPU usage as well. Of course, we’ll be the first to admit that WordPress isn’t the poster child for CPU usage either, but it’s still better than Drupal (in our experience, that is)
5. WordPress offers far more plugins - providing greater “one-click” customization. Now, this is probably still an understatement. Just subscribe to wp-plugins.net’s RSS feed to see the pace of updates in WordPress’ plugin community. And not all plugins go through wp-plugin-net.
6. Drupal’s admin interface just wasn’t cool enough. Admittedly, we place quite a bit of emphasis on GUI, and WordPress just won by a mile. Let’s not forget the wide range of admin skins that the WordPress community has created too (e.g. Tiger Admin).

That’s about it for now. We’re sure there are quite a few more, but they don’t come to mind at the moment. If we happen to remember more reasons why we switched from Drupal to WordPress, you’ll be the first to see the Part 2 of this series.

Drupal somehow konked on us, so we’ll be switching back to WordPress ASAP. So, till then, please bear with us.

P.S. There are a number of other reasons why we’re switching to WordPress, but that’s definitely content for another post.

Out of a need to express my opinion (well… maybe), Malaysia.Is-There was born. Check it out by clicking the logo below.

For Malaysia.Is-There, I’m planning Malaysian news, as well as the various (newsworthy) going-ons that happen not to make the news. What type of news? Well, the logo says it all, I think.

Look for the silver lining under every dark cloud. Well, that’s what I did with the recent downtime I experienced with the is-there blogs. With quite a number of my blogs down, I took the time to launch a new blog on another one of my domains.

We now have Cats Eyes - Dzi Beads - Crystals, a blog that reports news and provides serious (and not-so-serious) info on these archaic and modern stones and gems.

Aggregation of the feeds from this blog has already begun, and you can check it out at the bottom of the feed list on the right most sidebar.