With the exception of having to rewrite the default templates, the switch to Movable Type over the weekend was fairly simple and somewhat uneventful. MT is a nice product, with a good, active community behind it. One of the main reasons I decided to migrate was that mt creates static content pages instead of building them dynamically like my cms solution did. Having the page dynamically built was never really a big issue until I decided to host the site on my home machine, which started a few weeks ago.
Once I migrated the site locally, I didn’t like the fact that it depended on certain things being run in the background, like Resin and mySQL which ate up a lot of machine resources. That also was never a problem when I had 4 separate linux boxes I could run it on, but since I have only one right now, it suddenly became a big issue. Hence the move.
It’s actually pretty cheap to host your own site, provided you already have a broadband connection and a machine that stays on all the time. My domain name is currently handled by Gandi, an ICANN-accredited French registrar for $10 a year. No, that’s not a typo, it really is that cheap. If you use currently use Verisign, switching to Gandi will save you $65 a year. The coolest thing about Gandi is that it has a customizable DNS, which you can use to point your domain name to a static ip address. If you already have a static ip from your provider, then all you’d need at that point was an Apache installation with a vhost setup (Never, ever use IIS for hosting your site. Ever.), install MT, and then you are good to go.
Of course, most broadband IPs are dynamic, but the various free or commercial dynamic ip services that are readily available make that a non-issue. I use the venerable dyndns.org, which is free if you use their pre-selected domain names, or $30 for a lifetime custom dns. I paid them the money for sotto.org, and I use Gandi’s DNS for sotto.net.
So far the setup works just fine. It’s not without some hassles however: I may be violating my EULA with the broadband provider by doing this. I’m not certain because like most careful consumers, I never read the fine print when I sign those pieces of paper they shove in your face after they install something. I guess I’ll just keep running it until they tell me not to. My motto is that it’s always easier to say sorry later than to ask for permission now.
*YMMV
