Some of you might be wondering why I bother maintaining my own install of WordPress — instead of just using wordpress.com. Well… it ties into my last post a bit. It gives me the freedom to do whatever I want with my own blog. If I want to use plugins to enhance (in my own humble opinion) my blog, I can. If I want to tweak the underlying code (albeit, not something I’ve done in a while), I can.
Sure, letting the folks over at WordPress maintain the underlying code-base would be a nice thing. Sure, it might make it easier for people to log in to leave comments or read “member only” material (both of which I used to have on this site*). But it takes away freedom from me by their limitations they have imposed — particularly the lack of plugins bit.
Wasn’t the whole point of WordPress to allow third party developers to extend the base software? (No, really, I’m asking. I think it was, but I’m not sure.) So… using a limited base install of the software (what used to be known as “cripple-ware” before the web became big) just isn’t for me. If it is for you, more power to ya.
* I had originally intended to expand the number of posts in the “Member Only” area that I had on this site, but I’ve learned a couple of things. One: Very few people actually honestly care about what I have to say. Two: Those few people who do visit my site are of similar types as myself and don’t want to have to register on a bazillion different sites — even if they know the person. Hell… I hate it when I have to register on some site just to download a Joomla component or plugin. Wait. I hated it when I had to register on wordpress.org in order to report a bug on a plugin. But I did. Why? It’s a fact of life. Yet, I can understand when someone doesn’t want to register on here — after all, I don’t post all that much — so I’ve removed the “Member Access” plugin I was using and removed the (albeit unintentionally turned on) restriction to comments to only those registered users.
Strange Ways by Ace of Base
Groan… looks like I might have to directly touch some of the “base” or “core” files (although the wp-config.php file should be safe enough to tweak w/o fear of being overwritten during an automated update) in order to solve a problem I’ve been having for a while.
http://www.optiniche.com/blog/422/autosave-post-revision-control/
Of course… when ya do an update of a theme and find out that the update messed up some of your site styles… it doesn’t really matter where you’re hosting the install of wordpress, does it.