A couple of day ago, I wrote about how technology is, more often than not, a pain in the ass. Of course not all technolgy is a pain. Every so often something comes along that just works and people fall in love with it. I think the PalmPilot was a shining example of that. In fact, Palm coined the term The Zen Of Palm to explain their design philosophy and the resulting popularity of the device. Although I agree with the Zen of Palm, the bottom line was that the device just worked – that’s why people bought them.
So there are exception to the “crap that doesn’t work” rule and recently I was reminded of that as I worked with Movable Type. Movable Type (aka MT) is what is called a “Content Management System.” In plain english, Movable Type is a program that manages the content on your website. This weblog is all managed by Movable Type. I installed the program on this web server, customized it to fit my needs and design and use it to post content to the website. Posting my little rants is all quite easy. I have a simple form that I type the days diatribe into, click the “Post” button and ta da, a post appears on the front page. After awhile, a post is then archived so that you can read it later. MT isn’t the only content management system out there, but it’s very popular. Why? Because is just works.
The more I work with MT, the more impressed I am with the program. Clearly the authors thought out the concept throughly. With one exception, sub-categories, I can’t find a single thing missing from the program. They’ve thought of everything. In addition, the program has excellent documentation and a vast support forum that can help you overcome a hurdle, or just plain learn how a feature works. Weblogs are the focused model for Movable Type, but I’m finding more and more examples of where MT can be used. In fact, there’s hardly a web site where I can’t find a use for MT in some capacity.
Movable Type is a shining example of technology at its finest. It delievers on it’s promise of what it says it can do and it does the job very well. If you’re looking for starting a weblog, or if you’re even looking for a better way to manage content on your website, take a serious look at MT. If you need help installing the program, or learning how to use it, <shameless plug>I can help you there too.</shameless plug> 🙂