These are my initial impressions to using [Wordpress], the blog engine I’m now using for the site.

First some background; I’ve done web development before, so this is an area I’m comfortable with. Honestly, though, the only skills you need are the abilities to edit a text file and to use FTP.

Installation was actually really easy. Download the application from [Wordpress], edit a config file, upload everything, view a installation wizard on the web, and it’s up. So, getting hold of a basic site was really very simple, certainly compared to other blog engines and [cms’s][cms] I’ve tried

What’s really nice, though, is the ability to add themes and plugins. Themes are visual ‘stationary’ for the site, and there is a [master site][themes] which has loads of themes to choose from. just download a theme’s `zip` file, and unpack it into a `themes` folder, and it’s ready to go. [Plugins][] are about as easy, too; plugins provide some clever additions to the site. For example, I’m using the [slickr][] plugin to [show my flickr photos][photos], and [reCAPTCHA] to keep spambots out of my comments.

: http://www.wordpress.com
[themes]: http://themes.wordpress.net/
[plugins]: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/
[slickr]: http://www.stimuli.ca/slickr/
[photos]: http://www.stevecooper.org/photos/
[cms]: http://www.opensourcecms.com
[reCAPTCHA]: http://recaptcha.net/