Gordon's WebLog

"Thingamablog is a cross-platform, blogging application and RSS feed reader. It allows you to easily publish your own weblog without the need for any HTML knowledge. Unlike most other blog tools, it does not require the use of any third party services, but publishes the blog directly to the FTP server or network location that you specify. The interface provides a neatly organized overview of your blogs and a word processor like interface to create new entries. You can chose from several professional template designs, and all you have to do is click a button and your blog will go online. In addition, the program also allows you to keep track of your favorites XML/RSS feeds with the integrated feed reader interface. It can also generate a RSS compatible version of your own blog and import entries from RSS/Atom feeds." (Quote from SitePro). Read more about Thingamablog at the end of this post

But of course there are other blogging software suites available.

Site Pro News recently distributed en email newsletter about blogging software which makes very interesting reading. Here is the main text, to which I have added some of the "blurb" found on their web sites.

Remotely hosted blogging software

Blogger

Blogger is completely free and currently owns the majority of the remotely hosted user base, but not by a landslide. Bought out by Google in 1999, Blogger essentially fired up the blogging trend we see today. It is by far the easiest overall solution to use and, if you are a novice user looking to throw up some recipes or poetry, this is for you. Blogger is completely free and includes some great features like comments, photo blogging, and a basic community feel with user profiles. Because it is so dumbed down there are some features you may not find with Blogger that are only available through 3rd party add-ons. As a side note Blogger weblogs do quite well in the search engines and this was recently exploited with it being the first choice for spam blogs or splogs. A splog is a we blog used for the sole purpose of gaining inbound links or generating thousands of keyword stuffed pages with Adsense and the like. The recent Google Jagger update cleared a large portion of this up. Frëe.

Typepad

Released in 2003, Typepad is a product of Sixapart, the makers of Movable Type. It is largely based on MT but there are some major enhancements and differences. Your blog can accomodate one or more photo albums with auto thumbnail generation. You can easily add music, books, and other media to Typelists, which grab a thumbnail from Amazon and other retailers for easy displaying in your sidebar. Typepad is also a great deal more technical than Blogger so a bit of HTML know-how is recommended. On that note, editing your blog to look the way you want is also quite easy and Typepad blogs are known for being very eye-pleasing, intuitive and easy to navigate. In Sixapart's business model, Typepad is aimed at regular home and small business users while Movable Type is targeted at largër businesses or for internal intranets. Price: Basic, $4.95 a month; Premium, $8.95 to $14.95 a month.

Xanga

These guys originated back in 1999 as a site for sharing book, music and movie reviews. Although it quickly morphed into a full blown blogging tool, Xanga still maintains the ability to run a powerful review site. Xanga pulls data from several retailers like Amazon.com including thumbnails, pricing and a cover. The software also is very usable by novices with a powerful WYSIWYG editor allowing for easy HTML editing, adding smilies, links, and other symbols. By using Blog rings it is also easy to interface with Xanga's other 3 million users to share interests, ideas, and of course traffïc. Xanga comes in a frëe and $25 flavor.

The article also mentions Blogsome (e a part of a process that is changing global communication. Blogging is a way for individuals to publish material on the internet for everybody to read. You can do it right here, right now. BlogSome is the fastest growing blog host in the world (in percentage terms!), Blogster (We'd like to teach the world to blog - better. At Blogster.com that's our entire mission. Building a world of better blogsters. Why? Because good blog can take you to the big screen.) Mindsay (MindSay's mission is to make it easier for people to keep in touch and share information. To accomplish that mission, MindSay has built a service that enables users to create blogs - quickly, easily, and for free - and share them via a unique assortment of socially engaging features.) and Multiply (Store. U nlimited storage for your blog, photos, videos, music, and more. Share. Post for your friends, your family, or your entire social network.. Discuss. Multiply's exclusive live replies turn your content into fun, lively discussions.)

Self Hosted Blogging Software

Wordpress

WordPress originally began as a mod of an older open source package known as B2. WP is MT's biggest competition and is often the bain of endless Wordpress vs Movabletype style threads around the internet. Although launched just over a year or so ago WP has really taken the blogosphere by storm. And with good reason - Wordpress is completely frëe under GNU licensing and is packed with many features you will not find anywhere else. It is also much easier to install and get blogging for novice users and has a very large and helpful community. WP runs on PHP/mySQL and is quite scalable judging from some of the very large and trafficked sites I see using it. It also sports utilities to import files from Movable Type, Textpattern, Greymatter, Blogger, and B2. Wordpress recently upped the ante when Yahoo recently included them on their hostíng packages, in addition to MT. I have to admit I am finding myself more and more digging WP and will likely convert Profitpapers to WP as I get time (it can be a biznitch). Wordpress is frëe.

Movable Type

Aside from maybe Greymatter (the original open source blogging tool), Movabletype dominated the blogging market share in 2002-2004. Released in late 2001, Perl based Movable Type by Sixapart has maintained a large portion of the blogging market share, due mainly to the fact that there is a frëe version (supporting up to 3 weblogs) and that it is incredibly powerful, intuitive and easy to customize. Template driven Movable Type also sports one of the largest communities of developers and blogging enthusiasts around, meaning lots of support, idea sharing, and of course plugins. Movable Type can be configured to dynamically generate HTML, PHP or any other kind of pages you like, meaning it is incredibly scalable, fast, and loved by spiders. It is perhaps the most well known blogging software for SEO purposes and it is what currently powers Profitpapers and several of my other projects. Moveabletype is either Frëe with 3 authors, 1 weblog, and no support or $69.95 with unlimited weblogs, authors and full support.

Textpattern

Textpattern is the brainchild of Dean Allen and was written to ease publishing of content for those not inclined to learn HTML. Like WP and MT, Textpattern runs on PHP and mySQL for easy administration, backups, and power. What really sets textpattern apart from the others is the integration of Textile. Textile is a tool for easily formatting content for those who do not know HTML. WP & MT have modules for textile as well but it is native to the Textpattern system. Another bonus of the app is its superior handling of comment spam due to its smaller market share. On the blogs I maintain running WP and MT, I often find myself clearing out spam every day, whereas on some very busy textpattern sites I receive only manual comment spam (not bot driven). TP is open source.

The article also mentions Bloxom ( Blosxom (pronounced "blossom") is a lightweight yet feature-packed weblog application designed from the ground up with simplicity, usability, and interoperability in mind. Simplicity. Blogging--and, indeed, any online publishing-- should be as simple as typing away in your favourite text editor and hitting Save. Fundamental is Blosxom's reliance upon the file system, folders and files as its content database. Entries are plain text files like any other.) LifeType (LifeType is an open-source blogging platform with support for multiple blogs and users in a single installation. Writing articles is comfortable with the included state of the art WYSIWYG editor. Adding pictures and sound files (for Podcasting) is just a matter of browse and click. The Dashboard provides you with all the information you need every time you log in. Recent articles, comments and trackback as well as brief statistics get you updated about your blog immediately.) and Serendipity (actually a very good piece of work which I have used myself ... Gordon)

AND SO TO MY FAVOURITE AGAIN. THINGAMABLOG WHICH I USE FOR POSTING TO THIS BLOG !

Thingamablog is a cross-platform, standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing your weblogs almost effortless. Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.

Thingamablog allows you to:

Set up a blog in minutes via an intuitive wizard
Maintain multiple blogs
Effortlessly manage thousands of entries
Dynamically update blog content
Write entries offline (Dialup users)
Publish your blog with a single click
Read news with an integrated feed reader
Make posts from your favorite feeds
Create a unique layout with customizable templates
Import entries from RSS/Atom feeds
Set up flexible archiving options
Organize your entries by category or date
Save entries as drafts
Define your own custom template tags
Syndicate your blog via an RSS or Atom feed
Ping services like weblogs.com, BlogRolling, and Blo.gs
And much more...

Illustration at the end of the page.

Many thanks to Martin Mihalev for the smashing Rusty template.

Just a little bit different. Great use of colours and graphics, fast to load.

It really is SUPERB ! Well done Martin.

 

Illustration at the end of the page.

Yet another template theme by Andreas Viklund which has been "WorPressed" and "Widgetized".

Lovely colour scheme, with left hand contyent and 2 righ hand sidebars. A really splendid theme.

 

Have just come accross a splendid plugin to enable uploading/editing and inserting graphics into WordPress posts. It really is great

The ImageManager plugin for WordPress and this configuration tool are licensed under the MIT License, Copyright 2006 Per Soderlind

Have just come accross a splendid plugin to enable uploading/editing and inserting graphics into WordPress posts. It really is great

The ImageManager plugin for WordPress and this configuration tool are licensed under the MIT License, Copyright 2006 Per Soderlind