This is what scares me most about Manila…Three times now my kids have been shut out of their sites because of this malfunction, and while I know how to get around it to access 98% of what they have, there’s always some content lost. I’ve posted all over the place, but no one seems to know the answer. Really, really frustrating. Does MT have ANY issues like this?

(via Jenny) The Feed Room has a list of a variety of RSS feeds on a number of topics, and I’m thinking that someone who starts putting together even more comprehensive directories of RSS feeds might get a lot of traffic. I just downloaded and installed David‘s RSS plug-in that allows me to create separate feeds for all of my departments, a tweak that really opens up the landscape even further in terms of how to incorporate this into my classes and the Web site. Now, if I could just find a way to get the aggregator to show more than 24 hours worth of stuff AND to organize it by site…c’mon Userland…you’re getting so close! BTW, does Radio aggregate differently from Manila???

Sarah weighs in with some good arguments for Manila, and David adds that the bottom line is making it easier. So let me ask this: If both of the front-running tools have their issues, then should I be choosing one based on my assessment of what the future may hold for it? From all accounts, MT seems to be getting more attention than Manila in development terms. But there is Kern, who is basically doing what I propose and who happens to have two of the major Manila players around working for them. And, that whole Harvard initiative that Dave is undertaking gives me a great deal of hope. He’s using Manila. He’s trying to implement schoolwide. I can’t imagine that the Crimson-ites won’t express the same concerns that we have(even though they are so much smahtah…) I would think that would bode well for development of the tool. On the other hand, the issues we have deal most with ease of use and intuitiveness, the basic building blocks of the whole system. Doubtful that that will become easier.

This is a MAJOR decision for me now. I’ve gotten the superintendent’s go ahead; I’m presenting to a board committee in early May. The planning time for this is enormous. Our current site runs on a UNIX box, but we’re going to build the new site on NT. We have 3000 pages on our Web site, and I’m basically saying we start all over. We want to build an Intranet along with it. Gulp. Anyone have a quarter?

Right now, I need to get some questions answered. Things like will MT Pro allow people to create their own sites? Like how do you get an RSS feed into a Manila page? Like, again, what can and cannot be templatized in Manila and MT? (I swear, the thought of having to go in and configure a dozen settings in Manila for each Web log makes me crazy.) More to come, I’m sure.