Take 2 (or three... ish)

As you can see from my earlier post, this is not my first go at setting up a blog. I decided ultimately to use blogger as I have used it before, found it easy, like the way it integrates with Google, and just generally enjoyed it. And what a catchy name for my blog "IT214 Unit 9 Assignment" really rolls off the tongue.

The Setup

To get a decent looking blog going with blogger, it took a lot fewer steps than the other two sites I used. I picked a theme I liked, messed with it for a while and then scrapped it and went to a new theme. Changing the theme is so easy, I could imagine doing this on a whim without any worry. Blogger also lets you export your settings so that you can import them (in case you hate the changes)

Overall, setting up a blog on blogger was very easy and enjoyable

The Changes

• Hid and Disabled comments
• Applied the "Contempo" Theme with the "Dark" color settings
• Set the colors for far too long... Until...
• Scrapped the theme and started with "Simple" as a base
• Set the Favicon to the same favicon as my IT247 site
• Changed the Navbar to Silver
• Set the main color to a darker blue
• Widened Blog to 1000px and Sidebar to 320px
• Changed the footer to only include the "Attribution" widget
• Changed font to Consolas & Set to #000000
• Set Link & Visited Link to #213abb
• Increased Title Size to 36px
• Increased Font Size to 14px
• Added Image of myself and Son as a side "gadget"
• Set Timezone to UTC
  

My Conclusion

After spending a lot of time, I think the hardest part about setting up a bog is finding a host that you like. This is the same for nearly all types of website hosting. If you don't like the platform you use, you will not be likely to continue using it. Blogger is one I used in the past (please don't find it, its an embarrassing internet relic of my youth) and I really liked it then and I still do now.

So overall, finding the right platform is key. From there, finding the right audience comes next.

Repost From First Blog

Originally I set up a blog on a different site (well technically I did another before that, but it did not save) I decided to mirror that post, which can originally be found here: https://douglasmaclachla.wixsite.com/it214

I was not satisfied with the layout or designer of the site (at Wix) so I decided to switch to Blogger, as I have used it before and I enjoyed the format for creating posts.

Anyway, here is the first post:

The Setup

Initially, I used a site on Weebly and created the blog there. After about 2-3 hours of tweaking it, I found that I needed to have a domain, or pay for them to use it. This was a disappointment for me. So I came to Wix as I had never used it before. Setup was not too challenging, although I would prefer a setup where I can actually CODE rather than drag and drop elements to create the layout of the page.

The Changes

These are the following changes which I made to the layout/template after signing up with Wix. To the right, you can see what this initially looked like.

• Changed order so About comes before Blog in the menubar
• Changed background to a dark grey from white.
• Changed content background to a light blue.
• Removed all stock images.
• Changes Site Name to my own name.
• Centered the site name.
• Moved menu to the center below the site name.
• Removed Social Media Bar
• Capitalized About in the About title heading.
• Changed font and size of About text.
• Changed and added About content.
• Added picture of myself.
• Added contact information.
• Set header color to match the page color.
• Changed main page text to describe the purpose of the blog.

My Conclusion

Wix is a great site, and creating the content is fairly easy. However, it is not something I will continue to use. I would prefer to find a responsive blog layout and design the page myself from scratch. I think the editor for sites like this are clunky and often overwhelming. I prefer to do as much work as I can via a plain text editor.

Overall, I think a site like Wix is great for someone that wants a quick and easy site with a lot of customization. However, someone who truly wants control may want to look elsewhere.