Why I will go to an actual host someday.

So, I’m about 4-5 hours into this Wordpress nameserver stuff. What happened is that in order for me to have Wordpress host my blog, on my domain (chacha102.com), I had to point the domain at Wordpress.com nameservers. For people that don’t know this mumbo jumbo, here is what it means:

  1. I can’t have email go to anywhere but Google Apps 
  2. I can’t create a subdomain (something.chacha102.com)
  3. I can’t FTP (load files up to the server)

So, these are some big things, that I’m quickly learning mean that Wordpress just screwed me out of $10, AND my domain (for the length I want to keep pointing to Wordpress). Because I can’t create any subdomains, I can’t hook up a lot of features that Google Apps is built for. If I wanted to, I could add my own custom Google Sites to something like sites.chacha102.com, Google Calendar to, calendar.chacha102.com, and access to the Mail (Uses the Gmail Interface) at mail.chacha102.com. Apps also has a bunch of great other capabilties, and none I can use because Wordpress wants me to basically hand over control of my domain (or the records for my domain, I still own it).

And it’s not just Google Apps that I want this for. OtherInbox allows a great way for me to do my email with my own domain, along with several other things I could set up. I think it would be awesome to make a personal TinyURL script on my domain, that way I wouldn’t have to rely on the same service as 2,000 other people. Just some ideas.

So, What are my thoughts?  I can add as many as I want to for free at my domain host, and yet Wordpress can’t give me a simple way to edit my CNAME records? I’m paying Wordpress $10/year! Come on… Shape up your act Wordpress. If you are going to take control of my domain, let me manage it aswell.

Got any arguments? I wrote this at 10pm at night so I might be overlooking something. Please coment.

Updated 9:56 pm 1/13/09 (About 5-10 minutes after I first posted it)


- Tyler C.