http://blog.kineticcomputing.com Neal's Blog Copyright (c) 2009 Kinetic Computing Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:42:32 GMT 5 <P><FONT face=Georgia>After considerable prodding by friends and colleagues, I decided it was time to get a blog&nbsp;working on my company web site.&nbsp; I spent the morning researching the different blog engines before deciding on PressTopia™.&nbsp; My search parameters were: it had to be free, run on a windows 2000 server, and use SQL&nbsp;database (I have SQL 2005).&nbsp; Several I looked at included WordPress, .blog, dasBlog, and PressTopia.&nbsp; The popularity of WordPress gave it considerable weight, but as it is written in PHP (which I am not fond of), I decided to concentrate on products developed with ".NET".&nbsp; All the products I looked at had just about the same set of features and very professional interfaces.&nbsp; I am sure I would have been happy with any one of them.&nbsp; My decision to go with PressTopia was purely technical as it fit in best with my IT infrastructure.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Georgia>There are several options available for&nbsp;your own blog.&nbsp; The easiest is to use a hosted solution.&nbsp; Several providers&nbsp;can be found by searching for "hosted blog".&nbsp; The only down side I see is that the URL is something like 'KineticComputing.bloghost.com'&nbsp;rather than 'blog.KineticComputing.com' or 'www.KineticComputing.com/blog'.&nbsp; </FONT><FONT face=Georgia>I would think that comercial web hosting companies would&nbsp;including blog software as part of a hosting solution.&nbsp; If you are interested in starting your own blog, I would check with your service provider and see if they offer blogging as part of your hosting package.&nbsp; If they do not, installing your own blogging software is not too difficult but does require some technical understanding.&nbsp; This typically means using FTP to upload the software to a new 'blog' directory under your root,&nbsp;modifiying the configuration with the appropriate database connection string, and then running an installation script.&nbsp; Access to your blog would be through a URL like 'www.KineticComputing.com/blog'.&nbsp; Another option is to create a CNAME record like I did (blog.KineticComputing.com) and create a new virtual folder for it to point.&nbsp; This takes a bit more technical know how, but is very straight forward.&nbsp; I did it in about 10 minutes.</FONT></P> <P><FONT face=Georgia>Happy Blogging!</FONT></P> http://blog.kineticcomputing.com/default.aspx?id=1&t=How-can-I-start-my-own-blog Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:58:00 GMT