I’ve been fairly busy this week in the evenings. I love Blogger as it’s all set up for you and all you have to do is concentrate on providing content. But I am also a bloke, so tinkering and fiddling is my forte.
So with that in mind I’ve been playing about with self hosted blogging software, fiddling around with database settings, designing favicons, setting up multi level access users accounts and generally spending far too long hunched over my netbook.
WordPress– I’ve used this to build Mummy Reviews for wifey. It’s pretty ace as it allows different levels of access, the use of lots of cool widgets (google analytics plugins, SEO optimisation), different themes etc. Basically hosted blogs at www.wordpress.com use a cut down version of this software that isn’t as useful.
b2evolution– this is package that’s specifically designed to run multiple blogs on the one hosting account with one database. The thing it has over WordPress is that it can redirect several domain names you own to the relevant blogs. Currently I have my new reading blog I am currently reading hosted there But once I find my felt tipped pens I’m going to have at least one more there :)
Joomla– this is a really really flashy CMS (content management system) that can make magazine style websites as well as blogs. Because it has this extra functionality, its a lot more complicated to set up and I’m still playing around with it. Sites like this use it, so the end results can look very professional. Whether I can get the end results to look very professional is of course another thing entirely :)