aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Hating your blog software

Thomas Hawk says, ”I hate blogger.”

Me, I’m tempted to say, “I hate Movable Type.”

After nearly 2 years as a freebie with Movable Type, I paid the $49.95 this week for ”Professional Support.” I did it in part as a gesture of support for the company.
To date I have built several Movable Type blogs, installed and upgraded the software a number of times, and managed this site with few help tickets and no cash payment to SixApart. They’ve earned their $50 bucks.

But now they’ve essentially told me that mine is a worthless gesture!

It turns out that the support I paid for is actually “Basic Support;” they hope to offer “Advanced Support” in the future. And what precisely is this Basic Support I paid for? It’s nothing more than what I had before. For free. I read the FAQ and somehow missed that fact. 

For the record I got more support for the problem I’m grappling with now from Chad Everett in passing as a kind gesture (I plan to visit his wishlist to say thanks and check-out his plug-in MT-Notifier if I decide to stay with Movable Type), from my web host (which indirectly suggested I might want to consider WordPress) and from various readers who have emailed me (and again suggested I move to WordPress).

I’m left with my site not working properly and perplexed as to what to do. I am fond of Movable Type and feel some loyalty to it. But right now I’m feeling bilked, talked down to and mishandled by support. Given that I work in tech support myself, I realize that it may well be a misunderstanding but that misunderstanding has two sides to it. If there’s no movement on their side and I have to build this blog all over again from the ground up with “Basic Support” it may well be time to give in and join the crowd moving to WordPress.

So on this holiday weekend blogging will be spotty as I mull that over and pursue some more terrestrial pleasures. If you’ve got an opinion on the topic, please fire away. Comments and email are welcome!

UPDATE: Days later and I still can’t bring myself to go back at it with Movable Type support. Jim at Right-Thoughts suggests I try ExpressionEngine from pMachine. I’m listening. I’ve heard others say good things about their product.