A year has gone by since I started using “Radio Userland” in earnest for this weblog. I just paid the annual renewal fee (and helped the Userland gang debug their renewal software in the process!). I’m not using the Userland servers for hosting any of my weblogs any more — but the software is still evolving and it’s worth it to stay current on maintenance.
On balance, Radio does most everything I need. It’s still quirky (especially the FTP upstreamer who has to be stroked to stay alive). I’d still like some new features (e.g., referer logs in XML, a daily email distribution capability for weblog subscribers who don’t want to mess with RSS, built-in “on this day” support), lower memory and CPU utilization, etc. But, overall, it’s been a great tool to have in the toolbox. I’ve looked at some other weblog tools — Movable Type and Blosxom most recently. But I’ll likely stay with Radio. At this point, we’re a bit like an crotchety old couple — we’ve lived together for quite a while now and breaking up would be hard to do.
If you’re interested in living with Radio Userland, I’ve logged my notes here re: adapting it to my needs over the last year.