12.11.06 Expression Engine
This site is a monument to the geeky talents of Kat (if that be her name). She volunteered to build it before she knew exactly what it was I wanted built. Big mistake. Once I explained it all she very calmly went away to research how to best pull it off and decided to use Expression Engine (Go there to download a free version.)
I asked a souple of my web guru friends what they thought of EE, as Kat calls it. They didn’t know much. I was concerned. Was Kat hitching my wagon to an unknown possibly untested and incapable program?? - I thought. A little dramatic I know but hey, this is my entire career in one website. One can’t be too dramatic at times like this can they?
Turns out EE is one powerful bundle of software. Just look around this place at all that it can do...and this is only a fraction of it’s capabilities. We’ll unleash more of EE in version 2.0 of shaungroves.com someday. (Um, Kat, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that...)
So there’s an answer for the bloggers wanting to know if this puppy is powered by the super popular WordPress or Moveable Type. Nope. It’s the up-and-coming Karate Kid of the blogging world: Expression Engine.
ally simpson said:
the new site looks great man......................nice one
Dan "da Man" said:
Just a note for Shaun and Kat… the RSS feed hasn’t been performing too well. Maybe I have an old one, but all the links to the post go to a page with a pic of Shaun and his dad. Nice, but I wanted ro read about Expression Engine.
Dan "da Man" said:
Plus, the beauty of Expresion Engine is that it could almost pass as WordPress and Kat has made it look great! Good job everybody!
Shaun Groves said:
Thanks Dan. Which feed are you using? Atom? Rss 2.0? Feedburner?
Let us know and we’ll get that fixed for you pronto.
SG
Kat said:
Dan, we’ll take care of that RSS feed for you. Thanks for giving us the heads up.
Kat said:
By the way, just to give a bit more background on EE for those who might like to use it, I thought I’d do a bit of a comparison on EE and Wordpress. They’re both great scripts, but with very different userbases.
Wordpress can be summed up with one word:
1. Simple - It’s free, really easy to install, use and customize. It’s easy to create custom designs and add plugins and such. It’s great for blogging and as a simple and content managment system.
Expression Engine, rather than being the up and coming karate kid, is more like a ninja. Complex and powerful.
Expression Engine isn’t for beginning bloggers. If you’d like to set it up yourself and create your own custom design, you’ll need to be comfortable with xhtml, css and be willing to learn EE’s powerful tag engine. There is no “one click” template change like with Wordpress.
At the same time, though, if you start your blog on EE, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll never outgrow it. Once configured, it can efficiently run a simple site like mine, a more complex site like Shaun’s or huge community driven sites like ipodlounge.com or mac360.com. I don’t think I’ve run across anything that EE can’t do.
Some of the most well known designers and design firms run EE (http://www.erskinedesign.com/ and http://veerle.duoh.com/).
All that to say, I highly endorse it, but if you’re just looking to set up a quick blog that has lots of ready made designs, Wordpress might be your best bet.
Once set up, EE can be very simple to use for the average blogger, but setting it up can be quite complex. But if you want a really powerful and complex blog or business site, then I definitely recommend looking into EE. I’ve honestly not come across anything that compares.
I hope that’s helpful information. I do love talking tech...I could go on and on. I guess I just did...sorry.
Steven said:
Great job with describing the two. Seeing how simple=me at this point and time as far as blogging goes, I believe I will stick with my buddy WordPress. But possibly one day in the future…
The site looks fantastic Kat. As doesn yours.
CasCad said:
this looks great!really!
search engine optimization specialist said:
On a recent client project, I’ve recommended Expression Engine over Movable Type for many of the reasons cited in the review. One question with regard to MT static pages versus EE dynamic pages: How does this affect SEO? Are MT’s static pages more “visible” to search engines than EE?