How to make a blog

Klyka

Hey everyone,

I would like to start a blog about videogames. Or rather,I'm calling it a blog but what I want is the ability to put in a picture, write text underneath it and then give people the ability to write comments to said "post".

What would I use to do this? Do I need my own server? Do I need a special software or something?
How do I make it look clean and minimalist?

Oh and almost forgot: I want to give it it's own URL too. How do I do that?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Monolithic_Dome

In my opinion, for a project like this you wanna take the path of least resistance.

In this case, that is:

1. go to blogger.com, sign up for an account. It's free
2. Go to godaddy, buy a domain, redirect the domain to the blogspot.com address. 7 bucks for a year
3. Maek Poast.

Lewisham

I maek poast on Vox.

Clicky my sig.

Vox makes things look nice easy. But no domain mapping, which makes me sad.

honkymcgoo

Yeah, I think if you take a look at most people's blogs on the boards, they are either gonna be blogger or Vox. There's a link to mine on blogger at the bottom of my sig, check ours out and see which site you like better I guess.

Willeth

Wordpress.

It's as easy to set up as Blogger but looks so much nicer, and you can skin it a lot more easily. It's also a lot easier to upgrade to your own hosting when you want to make the jump.

Klyka

ok thanks everyone, i've tried out vox at work and it's nice but way too cluttered,so I'll try wordpress/blogger at home.

got a little test thing up at vox though: http://klyka.vox.com

this can be closed

Cowboy Bebop

There’s a cool ap for firefox called Scribefire which I would highly recommend for blogging.

Klyka

So I just set up a wordpress blog, it's in my sig.

Thanks for recommending this willeth,it is really awesome.

Kyougu

I'm the only one that uses LJ aint I....

I really should switch.

Lewisham

If you're going to do short-form posts, you'd get a lot more milage out of tumblr.com

Willeth

Klyka wrote: »

So I just set up a wordpress blog, it's in my sig.

Thanks for recommending this willeth,it is really awesome.

Well, I only like awesome things. :^:

Klyka

Lewisham wrote: »

If you're going to do short-form posts, you'd get a lot more milage out of tumblr.com

I'm gonna stay with wordpress,it's basically just what I wanted.

But thanks,I checked out tumblr and it could fit something else I want to do.

KVW

Willeth wrote: »

Wordpress.

It's as easy to set up as Blogger but looks so much nicer, and you can skin it a lot more easily. It's also a lot easier to upgrade to your own hosting when you want to make the jump.

Could you explain how Wordpress is easier to skin or modify? From my limited understanding and use of it, you have to pay money to have access to the CSS code to make changes for the free Wordpress whereas in Blogger, I can edit the HTML and CSS to my hearts content and even change the size of the templates or make my own.

In Wordpress, all I could change was the banner image of the template. I couldn't even change the colour of the links or other basic cosmetics.

Both were pretty easy to make posts, upload images, etc, but Blogger let me do a hell of a lot more than Wordpress did with the basic free service. If I had my own webhost, I'd probably use Wordpress, but I can't see any reason to use it over free Blogger.

Willeth

KVW wrote: »

Willeth wrote: »

Wordpress.

It's as easy to set up as Blogger but looks so much nicer, and you can skin it a lot more easily. It's also a lot easier to upgrade to your own hosting when you want to make the jump.

Could you explain how Wordpress is easier to skin or modify? From my limited understanding and use of it, you have to pay money to have access to the CSS code to make changes for the free Wordpress whereas in Blogger, I can edit the HTML and CSS to my hearts content and even change the size of the templates or make my own.

In Wordpress, all I could change was the banner image of the template. I couldn't even change the colour of the links or other basic cosmetics.

Both were pretty easy to make posts, upload images, etc, but Blogger let me do a hell of a lot more than Wordpress did with the basic free service. If I had my own webhost, I'd probably use Wordpress, but I can't see any reason to use it over free Blogger.

I think we went over this in the last blog thread, but as I understand it:

Wordpress is free. Completely. There are, however, two versions of the free service.

One, WordPress.com. This provides a similar service to Blogger, which hosts a yourblog.wordpress.com site and is fairly restrictive. With this, they charge you for access to the CSS script editor.

Two, WordPress.org, is where you download the software for free. You upload it to your site and can futz about with it as much as you want for no cost.

It's a lot easier to upgrade from WordPress.com to WordPress.org than it is from Blogger to Wordpress.org, and I think we can both agree that if you're hosting your own then you'll want WordPress.

EDIT: Although I must admit, what you've done with TWC on Blogger is very nice.

Klyka

I'm just gonna stick with wordpress for now.
I mean, seeing as I just did this at work during breaks, it already looks pretty nice.

Also,reading about wordpress.org, I can move it to my own webspace when I see the need.

So far,it's just a funny side thing I'm doing, I'm sure no one will even care about this blog.

KVW

Willeth wrote: »

KVW wrote: »

Willeth wrote: »

Wordpress.

It's as easy to set up as Blogger but looks so much nicer, and you can skin it a lot more easily. It's also a lot easier to upgrade to your own hosting when you want to make the jump.

Could you explain how Wordpress is easier to skin or modify? From my limited understanding and use of it, you have to pay money to have access to the CSS code to make changes for the free Wordpress whereas in Blogger, I can edit the HTML and CSS to my hearts content and even change the size of the templates or make my own.

In Wordpress, all I could change was the banner image of the template. I couldn't even change the colour of the links or other basic cosmetics.

Both were pretty easy to make posts, upload images, etc, but Blogger let me do a hell of a lot more than Wordpress did with the basic free service. If I had my own webhost, I'd probably use Wordpress, but I can't see any reason to use it over free Blogger.

I think we went over this in the last blog thread, but as I understand it:

Wordpress is free. Completely. There are, however, two versions of the free service.

One, WordPress.com. This provides a similar service to Blogger, which hosts a yourblog.wordpress.com site and is fairly restrictive. With this, they charge you for access to the CSS script editor.

Two, WordPress.org, is where you download the software for free. You upload it to your site and can futz about with it as much as you want for no cost.

It's a lot easier to upgrade from WordPress.com to WordPress.org than it is from Blogger to Wordpress.org, and I think we can both agree that if you're hosting your own then you'll want WordPress.

EDIT: Although I must admit, what you've done with TWC on Blogger is very nice.

Ah, I figured as much. However, it's pretty straight forward to log into Wordpress and import Blogger posts, including the formatting and images, and Blogger would, in my opinion, be a better choice until he decides to start paying for a webhost.

Klyka

I already have a webhost and everything.

I just don't want to use it yet.

Kyougu

Would there be an easy way to migrate my posts from LJ into one of these services? I would hate to just have to start from the beginning.