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I now use WordPress publishing software for this site (Product Review)

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Managing blogs and news content with WordPress is a Zen-like experience. The inner-beauty of a product is felt when it becomes almost unnoticed, allowing the site authors and editors to focus on publishing content and providing useful interactive functionality to their readers and customers.

I say this as someone who has been immersed in web content management for major news media companies since 1995. I have spent over a decade leading teams evaluating, implementing, maintaining and developing content management and publishing systems, including some industry award winning ones. My teams (including me personally) have been working closely with writers, editors, designers, photo/multimedia staff, sales and marketing folks at companies whose livelihoods depend on publishing content. I’ve also maintained my personal web sites since 1994.

It is impressive how well WordPress has worked as a CMS for the blogs and pages on this site. It is simple to use and painless to configure, manage and upgrade. It minimizes overhead and maintenance work.

WordPress plays well with others. It doesn’t require you to convert all your static content and pages powered by other CMS systems and custom scripts into WordPress. This allows you to conveniently migrate content to WordPress over time, preserving the URLs and keeping your site functional.

No wonder so many non-technical people and technologists alike use it for their sites: I switched to WordPress inspired by reading the personal blog of a colleague and CTO at another major media company who had also switched to WordPress. It is one of the best solutions for personal web sites and small to medium size organizations.

WordPress also powers the blogs of several major media companies with millions of daily page views. It has an well-designed architecture that makes it an excellent choice for large-scale use. It is used by a large and growing number of sites, including CNN, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, General Motors, Southwest Airlines, People Magazine, Apple Computer, Sony PlayStation US, C|Net, NY Times, Ziff Davis, Xerox, Delta Airlines and many others.

WordPress is a great choice because

  • Simple to use for writers and editors
  • Quick and simple to install, maintain and upgrade for systems administrators
    • E.g. automated daily backups to remote systems using a plugin
  • Good architecture for programmers to extend functionality if needed
  • Search engine-friendly and people-friendly URL structure
  • Dynamic publishing model of content managed in and served from a relational database. Content management and delivery are seamlessly integrated.
    • Presentation, as in design, is well separated.
    • This is a superior approach compared to other blog / CMS systems that recommend publishing static files.
      • In the file publishing model, those files are then served directly by the web server or processed by a web application server / CMS. That architecture, used by other blog platforms does not scale well and has been found to be error-prone, especially under heavy publishing/editing/commenting use.
    • If needed, external caching1 can be used that provide all the benefits of static file publishing without the drawbacks.
  • Excellent content management in a relational database
  • Rich feature set for advanced web publishing needs
  • Large and growing user base, well-supported and actively developed by the community
  • A large and growing number of plugins that add functionality to WordPress
    • WordPress is used by so many people that it is often likely that someone has developed a good solution for what you require. The WordPress directory is teeming with plugins, themes and other extensions developed and given by the community.
    • For example, support for OpenID as a client and server, site usage tracking with web analytics.
  • Plethora of third-party commercial support options available if needed
  • Free of license costs. Simple to operate and operate. Low total cost of ownership. An economical solution.
  • Reliable. Good performance. Scalable. Secure.
  • Open source

What WordPress currently lacks

  • A simple, standard way to place a widget in the main content area of a blog post or WordPress page. Currently plugins that need to place a widget there require putting in some special markup whose syntax varies with each plugin. Many use an HTML <!–comment–> syntax in the Code editing mode. Some use a syntax of [commands in braces] in the Visual editing mode.
    • A good solution would be for wordpress to allow widget placement and manipulation completely within the Visual content editing mode. Behind the scenes, in the code view, all plugins would use consistent markup syntax and it would be editable using a menu option in the Visual editing mode.
  • A way for certain widgets to only appear in the sidebar(s) of particular WordPress Pages or particular blog posts.
    • A good solution would be to have the ability to place a widget only on certain URLs that match a regular expression. Also, the edit form should have an option to include a widget only on a particular post or Page.

Alternatives

Another excellent choice for a blogging CMS is MovableType. I’ve had extensive experience with it and like it a lot too. MovableType and WordPress are the two leading products in their category.

If you are looking for a full-fledged content management system, consider Drupal or Plone. After a successful run for many years, my own Java-based Cofax is heading towards retirement.

If you need to build your own custom CMS, build using frameworks like Python with Django, Ruby on Rails or Groovy with Grails.

Rating: ★★★★★

  1. E.g. content delivery network like Akamai, an accelerator/cache like Squid or Varnish [↩]

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Book Review)

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I just completed Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner and found it an interesting book. (I listened to the unabridged audio book edition.)

This is a book written for the mass market written in a sensationalist style. If you are looking to learn about economics or are looking for facts proven by rigorous scientific study, this is not the book. However, what I liked about this book is its rogue approach of making almost heretic claims against established wisdom.

Whether you find the viewpoints the authors and collaborators of this book present to be believable or not, we do learn something important from reading this book: Conventional, established wisdom isn’t always gospel and needs to be challenged at appropriate times.

Parts of the book, especially the Chicago gang stories from the sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh are gripping like a novel. You will enjoy reading it. I recommend reading it.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Book Review)

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I enjoyed the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. (I listened to the unabridged audio book edition.)

The book is insightful and makes you think about thinking. Since childhood I’ve believed that intuition and emotions are the result of our minds doing subconscious analysis. The book does a good job of describing the benefits and perils of people’s split decisions and reactions.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Suggestions to Nikon for future DSLR cameras

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At present, Canon is dominating the digital SLR-type (DSLR) camera market. We need strong competitors to keep innovation high and prices economical. Since I use a Nikon D70 DSLR , I suggest a few features Nikon should consider in their upcoming DSLR cameras:

  • Enable the photographer to compose the image using a flip out LCD monitor in addition to the SLR-type view finder similar to most non SLR-type electronic viewfinder (EVF) digital cameras.
    • This feature would be useful to photo journalists and pro-photographers in certain situations where such photos using an SLR view finder would be impossible. For e.g.:
    • When raising the camera high above a crowd to get an important photo. In such a situation, using the LCD is the only way to compose the photo.
    • When it is physically impractical for the photographer to lean and put his/her eye behind the view finder. For example, when the camera is extended over a water body or over the edge of a cliff or building.

  • Vibration reduction image sensor — where the sensor moves to cancel out camera shake, similar to the one in the Konika Minolta Maxxum 7D camera. Benefits:
    • This will increase the value of all past, present and future Nikon Nikkor F-mount (and compatible) lenses since on the VR image sensor Nikon, using them the result will be VR-enabled.
    • Since VR should be a feature common to almost all lenses, it makes sense for it to be in the camera and not in each lens.
    • This will result in improved image quality since the additional optical element required in current VR/IS lenses won’t be required anymore.
    • This won’t hurt Nikon by decreasing demand for Nikon VR lenses since current Nikon film and DSLR bodies that don’t have this feature will still need those VR lenses. On the long run, it will help Nikon.
    • Nikon can either invent a technology that achieves the same outcome the Konika-Minolta one does, or they can license Konika-Minolta’s technology.
  • Tilt-shift mechanism built into the image-sensor system. This would allow high-quality architectural and other photography without requiring special tilt-shift lenses. This would be good for Nikon’s business for reasons similar to those mentioned above for the VR image sensor.
  • Have one or more high-end DSLRs with a 35mm full frame size sensor. As a lens-compatibility improvement over Canon, this camera should even work with Nikon DX format lenses meant for the 1.5x crop APS-C size Nikon image sensors. When used with such a lens, this camera would provide a lower resolution crop (but higher frames/sec rate like the Nikon D2X), and the lens would still be usable like it is on other Nikon 1.5x crop DSLRs.
    • A 35mm sensor is necessary to compete with Canon’s 35mm full frame digital cameras. A bigger frame will always be able to have more pixels and provide better image quality. Canon is competing with medium-format film cameras with their 35mm DSLRs. Nikon must keep up.
    • Having a high-end 16-plus megapixel DSLR will increase Nikon customer confidence that Nikon is a competitor in the top end, resulting in improved Nikon brand loyalty and better sales of other Nikon equipment.
    • The compatibility with even Nikkor DX lenses (even in a cropped lower resolution mode) will strengthen the statement that Nikon cares greatly about lens compatibility, resulting in greater brand loyalty.
    • To my knowledge, Nikon mainly makes 35mm and some large-format lenses. Having a Nikon DSLR that produces medium-format film quality images (like the Canon EOS 1ds Mark II does), may make the medium format go away, establishing Nikon as one of the leaders in 35mm as well as large-format.
  • Build in a horizontal level feature that helps align the camera properly while viewing through the optical view finder as well as composing via the LCD.
    • This will allow horizontally correctly-aligned photographs when shooting landscapes without a tripod.
    • Having an alignment view within the optical view finder would be more convenient and faster than using a bubble-level or similar attached to the camera and the camera being on a tripod.
    • Once the shutter is pressed half way, the alignment should lock and work with the anti-shake CCD to compensate for camera shake tilt as well.
    • This feature should work when the camera is held in landscape as well as portrait mode.
  • Include a movie-mode like in EVF digital cameras. Just because these cameras are for pro-photographers doesn’t mean having such a mode would not be a benefit.
  • Nikon as a company should encourage third-party components and compatibility for the Nikon system, e.g. third-party lenses and accessories for Nikon cameras and third-party cameras for the Nikkor F-mount lenses and Nikon accessories. This will help Nikon as photographers will be able to collect Nikon-compatible components as their budgets permit. Ultimately, they will get the Nikon lenses and other Nikon-made components since Nikon’s quality is among, if not the very best.
    • This will create innovation, features and accessories for the Nikon system from companies partnering with Nikon.
    • It will increase industry support for the Nikon system.

I like Canon digital cameras — they are often market leaders using innovation for useful, practical features. Nikon makes good DSLRs too, but they need to do better to compete with Canon.

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