Software Reviews

Newsletter / Website Mailing List

DadaMail (n´ MojoMail) has been a great piece of software for handling multiple company mailing lists. I used it to manage our 5,000 subscribers while at Virtual Access Networks, but I haven't been using perl recently so I've started to look into list software written in PHP. I just installed phplist , and that was a relatively good experience. I haven't had a chance to really write it up yet, so I'm curious if anyone else has stories to share about mailing list managers.

Actually, I'm not convinced that websites need mailing lists anymore. The only website newsletter that I subscribe to is the SitePoint Tribune, and that is because they obviously put a lot of effort into it, and it's done well. Every other list that I'm a member of are true list-servs for groups or opens source projects. Otherwise, I can get updates via blogs and RSS on a daily basis.

Blogging

Wow. I'm impressed. Of course I didn't really expect less from the group who developed Serendipity (also affectionately known as s9y -- get it? There are 9 characters between the s and the y in Serendipity. Really saves a lot of typing, while mnemonically you still associate with the nice name.) This blog software does require a database, but aside from that potential drawback, the installation process is fantastically smooth, the feature set remarkable, and overall it's just done right. If you want to add a blog to your website, I suggest that you check out Serendipity. You can see Greg Rundlett's blog "Free Thoughts" for an example. (By the way, it is a multi-author blog system, so if you'd like to share some 'Free Thoughts', just ask Greg for an account. I am also looking toward a future setup where all registered users of this website automatically have their own blog. I value comments this idea.)

I've fiddled with both the original Bloxsom (Perl) and the PHP translation, and neither one appealed to me. There are many 'plugins' and the software is certainly capable. However, I would categorize it as suitable only for the technical crowd because it isn't simple to setup and start using right away with all the features you might want. For example, the nice thing is that both of these are file-based, so you just need a simple file on your server and that constitutes a blog entry. However, getting that file on the server is handled outside the program. You need to configure the software and server to accept email messages if you want to use email to 'post' to your blog, or you have to setup an editing tool plus FTP program or WebDAV configuration. These are not trivial for end-users. Compare this with Serendipity: You log into your blog using your web browser, and have easy point and click access to all the authoring, configuration, and administration tools that you would like.