Dividend Tree 11 February 2009 admin  Email This Post  Print This Post

I am in process of transplanting my Dividend Tree from nursery (blogspot domain) to its own farmland (own domain). While I have registered the new domain, dividendtree.net, I am still in process of figuring out what changes will be required and how I am going to make this happen.When I started Dividend Tree, I decided to use google’s blogger.com as my platform. I knew that using Word Press and owning an independent domain was the best way to move forward. On the other hand, I found that blogger was a very simple to use, very intuitive, and easy to setup. Any new blogger will realize that there are two main elements; (1) subject content; (2) web/content management. In the beginning I wanted to have a focused attention to the subject matter. I wanted to keep web/content management issues at a minimum. This allowed me to focus my precious little time that I have (after my full-time job) on writing about dividends and sharing my thought process. I still continue to believe that a beginner should use blogger platform to start with. In summary, the beginner experience has been great. I could not have asked for any better platform. So why the need for this change?

In its quest for simplicity blogger makes some compromises. The foremost being the compose editor for posts. In my routine process, I write my short posts in word document, and then copy-paste it in the compose editor. This has been a nightmare. I have had a continued struggle with adding link attachments, text and paragraph formatting, bulleting, image additions, etc. After posting the document, if I have to make any changes, I would go back to see that all formatting has changed. I have restart the whole process again i.e. make it blank and start from copy-paste. For example, I may spend anywhere between 15minutes to 30minutes to 40minutes (depending upon the post) just to post it the way I wanted it to be. Post with images and links to google documents were the most difficult for me. This was not an efficient use of my time.

This made me explore Word Press platform. One early observation is word press platform is not simple and not intuitive as a blogger. In general, the experience has been good. I believe it will give me the flexibility and effortless posting process that I need. I hope to reduce this logistics/web management part of it. Since I am already making a platform change, it is wise to make a move to an independent domain simultaneously. It will be relatively easier to transplant since Dividend Tree still in nursery. To minimize any issues, I will be keeping the same site theme and layout. Sometime in future, I do plan to change the theme to another theme which has more white space and visually professional appeal.

I hope to complete this process by end of this week. During this time, my postings will be erratic at best. Thanks for you patience.