A new home

Moving home is listed among the most stressful events that one can experience in a lifetime. I wonder if 'moving blogs' should be included in that list too?

My first forays into blogging were around the time that Apple had just launched a set of tools under the '.Mac' umbrella. These tools were a successor to an earlier suite called 'iTools' and were in turn succeeded by the ill-fated MobileMe service (Dan Moren provides a good overview of these early transitions).

Under iTools and .Mac, Apple provided a web-based tool called HomePage that allowed you to create simple websites. As I recall, it was painfully slow to use and not very flexible. In 2006, things improved somewhat as Apple released iWeb, a desktop application that was part of the iLife suite of tools and which let you create websites that could be hosted on your iDisk (though you could also publish to other hosts).

The iWeb application made it relatively easy to create various different styles of website, and included a dedicated template for blogs. I used iWeb for a long time — hosting several different blogs, and my own personal website — before realizing that there were many things you couldn't easily do with the service. Support for iDisk-hosted websites continued as Apple transitioned to MobileMe, but the life-support cable for this service is about to yanked out, with Apple wanting people to migrate to its free — but iWeb-incompatible — iCloud service. Support for any iDisk-hosted sites will expire on June 30th and presumably these sites — along with any other files you may still have on your iDisk — will simply disappear.

Even before Apple announced iCloud, I had already been looking around for a alternative service to use for simple blogging and had started to use Posterous. Late last year, Posterous undertook some rebranding and became 'Posterous Spaces' with more of an emphasis on sharing and becoming a social network in its own right. This concerned me a little bit as I felt that Posterous's strength was in its simplicity, and Posterous Spaces seemed to suffer from a lack of focus. Further alarm bells rang earlier this year Posterous announced that they had been bought by Twitter. Although they claim that the service will "remain up and running", I'm now concerned that I can't count on Posterous as a long-term blogging solution.

All of which brings me — the writer — and you — the reader — to Squarespace. I've been hearing a lot about this company from many of the 5by5 podcasts that I listen to. For a low monthly fee, Squarespace will let you build beautiful websites to meet any need you have. So I'm now using Squarespace to host both my main website and my blog. It's been a useful opportunity to remove a lot of old content and try to give my website a much cleaner look. I'm still debating whether I should let all of my earlier blog posts remain on Posterous, or whether I should try to migrate them all to this site. In any case I'm really happy with the Squarespace service and hope to stay here for many years to come.