It seems that every couple of years I have to throw away the old blog and start a new one. I have to satiate that desire to try new things so it’s less about the inadequecies of my old blog than my desire to try something new.

The new blog! So this time I’m using something called Octopress. Octopress is a bit different from Wordpress, Drupal or other blogging software I’ve used in the past. It is based on Ruby and Jekyll. Octopress has no database backend and allows me to use my local git repository for change management. I can use any editor I like (Vim!), use conditionals, macros and other neat tricks all while using a very familiar interface. Generally it is simple and fits well in to the way I have been doing things for quite some time now. I think the clencher for me is the ability to use a revision control system to manage my content. The general Unix friendliness is something that I appreciate a lot too. It will be easy to automate aspects of this blog without relying on a bunch of other peoples plugins.

I’m looking forward to playing around with Octopress over the coming months. Let’s see how long this one lasts!