MovableType, a Big Disappointment!!

Well, its nothing new, MT is a big disappointment, yet again!! I thought that I’d install the newly released MT3.2 to see what they have improved that they are skipping about, so I went ahead and downloaded the FREE Personal Edition.

Downloading it required me to have a TypeKey account which I didn’t have, no problem, I signed up. I downloaded the 1.76MB ZIP package(unzipping it makes it a cool 5MB+). Now I needed to install Perl(I don’t have it since I don’t use it), so off I went and downloaded ActivePerl(weighing 8.5MB), then proceeded to install it. Then opened the Perl Package Manager & installed DBI & DBD-mysql packages, configured IIS , so the Perl was now fully setup on my PC(yuck!!).

Now after going through the Mt-Docs, I proceeded to edit the mt-*.cgi files to have the proper Perl path in them & then configured the mt-config.cgi as well(yuck, all that config was making me sick, WordPress just asks for DB info worth 3 words, that’s all). Now I ran the mt-check.cgi to see if everything was ready!! Ofcourse its ready, as all required packages are installed & the optional packages needed like DBD for MySQL etc. Now as per the MT-Docs’ Initializing the System, I’m supposed to load mt-load.cgi in the browser to install MT.

Can you guess what happened next?? You won’t be able to, there’s no mt-load.cgi in the directory!! I checked the original ZIP that I downloaded, its not even there, so I downloaded MT3.2 again but its not there as well!! But the mt-upgrade.cgi is there, which makes me think that either these idiots at SixApart just were so busy with partying on the launch that they forgot to include some files in the downloads or they didn’t include it just in the FREE Personal Edition, making it an upgrade only version. Yes I know what some of you MT lovers will be thinking, maybe I didn’t select the “Full-Version” when downloading & instead chose the “Upgrade-Version”!! Well, you gotta have a really ridiculous sense of humour to even suggest that!!! 🙄

Another reason for this goofed-up installation can be that they changed the installation procedure & just forgot to update the docs to reflect the new installation, ofcourse this is something that can really happen when you are focused more on partying & charging $$$ for a useless product instead of making it something to be worthy of download!!

So after nearly more than 2 hours, all I have is a useless crap called MT3.2, a useless Perl installation which I won’t be needing & wasted time!! I’m kicking myself for even wanting to try MT3.2, ofcourse I won’t be doing that again, ever!!

And you can read ridiculous claims like, “better interface”, “easy setup”, “best blog software”, they’d make you smile even when you pretty pissed off!!! I’d say to this SixApart guys, if you wanna learn something on how to make a great product, you need to simplify the installation, if someone isn’t able to install your product, they’ll certainly not consider it ever again. And if you want to know how to make something easy to install, see WordPress, you just put in the DB-Name, DB-User & DB-Password in the config file & start the installed, where you fill in 2 fields & click the button, and your shiny new WordPress blog is ready to go!!! It hardly takes 5 minutes, even though the WordPress labels the installation guide as “5 Minute Install”!! 😉