Well, as per an earlier article, I'm transitioning to the new Blogger, which is currently in beta. But it seems to be working fairly well for me. So far. I have to say the folks at Google have done a terrific job making this transition downright seamless. All I had to do to switch over was to provide my Google account info, and then pretty much press a button. The site was down for maybe two minutes. And then it wasn't. And it looked completely the same (except for one minor piece of text — the bullets in the sidebar got kinda screwy but were very easy to fix).
The absolute coolest new feature for me is called "Labels". Labels are really what most people call "tags" or "categories" and Google has them baked right into the system now. Prior to the new system, I was managing categories using Byzantine work-arounds that utilized Google's Blog Search — which is now thoroughly hosed — and managing series using the venerable del.icio.us social bookmarking system. That all ends today.
Okay, well not exactly right this moment. I still have to update all my posts to use the Label system, and this requires going into each post by hand, removing the old categories, and replacing them with Labels. Fortunately, while tedious, this process isn't too bad, and adding labels is another place where the new Blogger shines. Once New Blogger is aware of your Labels, it can auto-fill after you type the first few characters of any given Label. This is a real time-saver considering I've got 160 posts to update. In the end, though, I don't think it will take too long, and it offers me a single, unified system for both series and categories all in one fell swoop, so the initial investment in time will ultimately save me quite a bit of future time and effort. In the end, I'll have a much more efficient and well organized blog.
Oh, and did I mention? New Blogger is fast! Much faster than the old Blogger in every respect, but particularly with regards to publishing, which is instantaneous.
I've been pretty down on Google in the last two posts (don't know why I'm all over them lately). But I have to say, the new Blogger Beta, thus far anyway, kicks some serious ass. Way to go guys!
Okay... Back to work...
UPDATE:
It's done. The whole blog now uses Google Beta's Labels for both categories and series. So, if you're looking for all articles that deal with Mac OS X, just hit "Mac OS X" under the "Categories" pulldown on the right. And if you're looking for all articles in the "External Network Unification" series, select it from the "Series" pulldown. Just like before. The difference is that now, instead of being routed to del.icio.us or Google Blog Search, respectively, you get taken to the category or series section built right into this blog. Which is really how it should've worked all along. Sweet!