Without consciously, I have become a fan of dasBlog, an ASP.net and XML based blog application. It doesn't mean that I am going to move my blog from .Text to dasBlog because 1) it isn't easy to transfer all content over; 2) all content is indexed pretty well in search engine especially on Google, that is why I replaced my own-made search box with Google search box on my blog. Instead, I am using it as my working blog and personal own used tech blog.
So, what features in dasBlog actually attract me to use it?
- Easy to implement, their XML based infrastructure makes the whole installation, upgrade, and maintain really easy. Having a strong backend database to store all data is always a good idea for many reasons. However, to a blog, XML is good enough.
- Upload images and files while you prepare your post. It is quite difficult or inconvienience to do it on .Text but I can live with it for now.
- Email to post. I haven't used it yet but it sounds very attractive.
- Easy to customize the theme for your own. The structure of theme on dasBlog is cool, really easy to customize it to make one for your own. I actually made one and will share it blow for anyone who might be interested.
- There are others I am sure I haven't digged it out.
The recently released version of dasBlog, called 1.8 Gold, provides a lot of new features, including a bunch of new themes. I used one called “calmBlue” as a template and made one for my own called “Jungle”(see the image below). Feel free to download it below.
download the dasBlog theme Jungle here
note: after you extract the file into theme folder, please copy all images under images folder to the your dasBlog images folder. These images are configured at css file but so far I still didn't figure out how to correctly put a related path for these images if I saved them under my jungle theme folder.