IGP BLOG Move and Update
17 January 2013
We have had some blogs on Typepad for a number of years. In fact a number of blogs. However there was a lack of control of the content that I didn't like. In addition the URL wasn't contributing directly to our search results, and there was a disconnect between our products, services and blog. It was time to use our own technology.
We have had some blogs on Typepad for a number of years. In fact a number of blogs. However there was a lack of control of the content that I didn't like.
In addition the URL wasn't contributing directly to our search results, and there was a disconnect between our products, services and blog.
It was time to use our own technology AND that of others greater than us. So the IGP Blog has been moved to www.infogridpacific.com/blog/; but you know that if you are reading this.
The tools and Technology
IGP:Digital Publisher (DP) is great at creating and maintaining static sites that are managed like dynamic sites. DP was designed for print PDF, ePubs, Mobis, SCORM packages and pretty much anything else you need. Extending it for static sites was mostly about processing metadata. DP is designed as a single content management source toolset for every type of format.
Whereas PDFs and e-Books are essentially produce once formats, websites and blogs are dynamic and need constant updating and maintenance.
Using IGP:Digital Publisher for static sites as well as general digital content production means content can be added, modified, updated and indexed for search pretty much instantly at any time. We have nearly 1000 page online under management and it is growing everyday. The delivery is static sites but the production is like dynamic content sites. The best of both worlds without a lot of complicated server maintenance. Here are our static sites, all hosted from Amazon Web services AWS S3 buckets ...:
... plus a few "secret" ones.
The missing blog parts
Originally we had decided not to have comments on the new blog and leave that with links to social comment sites. But that was distant, relatively unfriendly and unsupportive. Our blog is technical, varied and opinionated. On the old blogs we had a steady stream of comments that were both positive and helpful. Enter Disqus, a rather awesome variant in the social software millieu.
I had known about Disqus for some time and even spread a few comments around various sites using their commenting engine. After a close look it was exactly what was required. Plus the price was excellent (free).
I was also very attracted to Disqus because it uses the same underlying Python applications that we use in IGP:Digital Publisher. It was a family thing. So we gave it a shot.
Getting it running
Thanks to the wonder that is cloud computing it was less than half a days work to get Disqus running on our four main sites with their multiple sub-sites. It worked out of the box as promised and now we have comment and social icon things everywhere.
The easy monitoring, analytics and control that it offers are superb. I have a general allergic reaction against new interface in social software but this one was clean, simple, uses small words and clean type.
We have our own Javascript for sorting content page article links by keywords which we will implement shortly. That should be all that is required to change a static site to a blog wannabe.
So give us a comment anyone. But say something nice please. We are a sensitive bunch.
Posted by Richard Pipe