I wanted to add a “currently reading” list of books to this blog.

One of the better plugins I found was Aaron Forgue’s Amazon Showcase.  It lets you create multiple showcases — lists of Amazon items you select using the ASIN or ISBN-10 number.  Each showcase can then be used in the sidebar as a widget.

Pros:

• Relatively easy to add items to the list.  Just paste in the ASIN or ISBN number.
• Multiple lists (showcases).
• Easy to pick thumbnail sizes and displayed information from the input page, on an item-by-item basis.

Cons:

• Can’t configure the template code universally, though it’s cool that you can tweak it on a per-item basis.  Fortunately, I wasn’t too picky about this.  I did add one line to my custom.css file to make the book thumbnails display inline.

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Another useful Amazon related plugin I found is Amazon Reloaded.  It adds an easy way to search and insert Amazon links on the post editor page.  I hated going to the affiliate dashboard just to get a link to

Tip: If you just want a quick way to link to an Amazon page with your affiliate ID inserted, without using this plugin, just add “?tag=gregorygo-20″ to the URI.  Obviously, replace “gregorygo-20″ with your own affiliate ID.

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I started down this road because I added a book to my wishlist.  Then I thought that it’d be cool to embed my wishlist on the sidebar here.

You’d think Amazon would have an easy way to embed your wishlist onto a site, but nope.  No embed code that I could find.

This post makes me think they used to have an embed function, but I can’t find it anymore.  It seems like the only way to share lists nowadays is to email them or post directly to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or Delicious.

I’ve since decided against embedding my wishlist here, and opted for putting in a “currently reading” list instead.

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Amazon is a genius company for so many things, but I’m still occassionally amazed at how clueless they are about certain things.

No RSS feed or embed code for wishlists? Ridiculously complicated affiliate text links just to link to a book page?  Why??

Maybe they need a Chief Usability Officer for Power Users.

Even though I tell everyone I know to use Drupal for their web projects, I finally caved and set up my personal blog (what you’re reading now) on Wordpress. I finally faced reality — using Drupal for my personal blog was overkill and added so much unnecessary complexity.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defecting. It’s not a war where Drupal and WP can’t coexist. Each CMS has its place and purpose.

For example, if I had to do it again, I would still build the Top Personal Finance Blogs directory and Money Tips Network aggregator using Drupal.

But for personal blogs, Wordpress is the right way to go. I don’t need complex custom functionality. I just need a basic blogging app that makes it easy for me to post my random thoughts.

For years, I thought that as a self-respecting Drupal webmaster, I should use Drupal for all my projects. Then I started using my personal blog as a Drupal sandbox. The more I experimented, the less usable the blog became. I stopped posting because I didn’t want to deal with the mess my futzing had made.

Now I just want my blog software to just work, so I can just blog instead of spending time under the hood.

So here’s to using the right tool for the job. Wordpress rocks.

My old personal website has become a wasteland after years of experimentation.  And the domain (avocadoshake.net) doesn’t really represent my professional life.

This is reboot of my personal professional blog / Internet homebase.  We’ll see how it goes.