(but not the monthly or weekly archive file). While static pages are arguably quicker to load for the user, it is time-consuming for the author and resource intensive for the user to constantly rebuild files. Also, by using static pages, at least twice as much space is used on the server as is needed (the entry files, .cgi format, as well as individual entry pages in HTML and weekly or monthly archive logs in HTML). Besides this, sometimes rebuilding is impossible and leads to Greymatter timing out and showing a blank window (usually when there are massive numbers of entries being rebuilt, or when attempting to rebuild all files). Raw HTML Raw HTML is included in Greymatter's original Perl source files. The developers discussed the idea of extracting the HTML used in the Greymatter front page's many tables, and a version was made, but was never popularized. This leads the Greymatter source files to be larger than necessary (mostly GM.cgi). Usability Because Greymatter is written in Perl, files need to be given the proper permissions with the chmod command before use. Though an experienced web guru or installer can make the installation in under five minutes, for a one-time install it is more work than many other programs available. It is advertised as being for novice or advanced users. However, Greymatter does automatically try to detect web paths (though not usually successfully) and has many common defaults set. Customization Greymatter uses custom designed templates (usually written in HTML), which can be used to completely configure the look and feel of the blog, rather than relying upon static "templates" like Blogspot. This allows the software to integrate into the look and feel of the author's website. Too many entries While Greymatter saves entries with 8-digit filenames in the format XXXXXXXX.cgi, after 5,000 entries diagnostic mode would not work in early versions. This bug was fixed, but shows that large numbers of entries hinder Greymatter's performance ability and were not truly planned for. Features Greymatter's main features are that it is written in Perl, resides on your own server, and saves .cgi files of the entries (plain text format), as opposed to using PHP and a MySQL database (as most blogging software use today). Greymatter has many mods which let users use emoticons and post the current mood and/or music of the user. There is also an "entrymore" text, which is displayed