Blogging Blog

GMail Invitations

I have six GMail invitations available; email me (link on sidebar) if you want one. Generally it will be first come, first served, except that my usual readers get preference.

UPDATE: All gone!

Blogging Software & Services

You've discovered blogs; now you want one -- but How? Where?

If you already have some technical skills, and want to host your own site, you have lots of options that I will not be exploring here. Software I often see mentioned includes Textpattern; Moveable Type (by the folks that bring us TypePad); Wordpress;  Radio UserLand; and Drupal. You can find a chart comparing more blogging software at Asymptomatic.net, here.

For those of us who want something easy, free or relatively inexpensive, and hosted by someone who knows more than we do, there is an abundance of choices:  Blogger; LiveJournal; Tripod Blog Builder; Bravenet; Xanga; and my own choice, TypePad. There are many, many others -- see a list of free ones at diarist.net.  PC Magazine did a review of blogging tools that you might find helpful.

Most of these services have a list on their front page of "recently updated weblogs" -- this is a good starting point to cruise around and see what it is possible to do with their software. For this purpose, it is best to try to ignore the actual content of the blogs you are perusing, and just focus on structure and design. It will also give you a good sense of whether you can live with the advertising that comes with free blogs, or are willing to pay for the service to avoid it. Usually you can begin with the free service, or a trial period, to see how you like the service.

(I'm told that it is possible, if one has the technical skills, to "hide" the advertising banners on free sites. It may be, but it strikes me as unfair -- that advertising is, after all, what supports the blogger's ability to use the software and hosting without charge.)

Based on my own experience, I advise that you consider your first efforts an experiment; I had no idea when I began that I would want to do so much with my blog -- that I would want pictures, and toys, and my own domain name.  Give yourself a few weeks to play around before committing yourself to any one service, or a name for your blog.  Try Googling the name you choose to see how many others chose the same name (there are 96,100 results for "Ponderings", just as a random example . . . )

This blog, for instance, began simply as a place for me to play with new skills, and is evolving into a blog to help others who are now where I was at the beginning of my web journey. If there are topics you would like me to tackle, let me know!

Next (or soon, anyway): Blog Directories.

AudioBlog

testing




My Blogging Blog preferences are set to "publish as draft" in TypePad, but the audio post is immediately published. The service does allow me to preview my post, and to add text to a post.

I first saw this at as I live the questions, and thought it might be ideal for poets. On Monday, Everything TypePad! published a post on both Audioblog and audblog for TypePad users.

Both services allow posting by phone, but audblog is post-by-phone only. With Audioblog you can also post with a computer microphone, and can preview the recording before posting. It also allows upload of mp3's and the creation of playlists -- far down the road for me.

Neither service is free; Audioblog is $4.95/ month, audblog is $3.00/month, but offers a free trial. The features are quite different -- go check them out!

Noticed!

This blog and my new Links blog have just made Nick Piombino's Crush List!

Links Blog

I've set up a Links blog. The old Links page was hosted at my homepage, which is not a blog. There were several problems with this: it was a hassle to update; it got "messed up" when the reader increased the font size; and it didn't get spidered by services like Technorati and Truth Laid Bear. Now people I've been linked to for months should know it, and get credit for the link.

I also needed to downsize Watermark. A scan of my page by the Web Page Analyzer at Web Site Optimization.com (found via LAVoice) gets me Warning! after Caution! after Warning! and tells me to "consider reducing" and "consider optimizing" to speed loading. The Links blog gives me a place to put links I've moved from Watermark, and a place for some toys, like Moon Phases and Weather Pixie and Feminist of the Day.

Watermark still gets warnings and cautions, but more about that another time.

Finally, I need to get my own compulsive blog-reading under control. So I've moved some blogs from my Bloglines to the new Links blog and added a link on Watermark to my Bloglines so that folks can see what I read every day. I've significantly reduced the number of links on Watermark to my absolutely most favorite, and those I think my readers would most enjoy.

It seems odd to have a whole blog just for links, but it was the best solution I could think of, given my level of technical skills. Even if I knew how to add a page to Watermark (which I don't), that would not solve the problem of links showing up on Technorati. If any of you have better, or even alternate, solutions, please say so!