Setting up your own blog, Part 2: Adding your own domain name

Earlier, I wrote about getting started with your own blog. It was mentioned that you could get your own domain name to fully brand your Website. Today, we're going to talk about doing just that.

Now, there are two circumstances under which you'd add your own domain name to your blog:

1. You are starting a new blog
2. You are adding to an existing blog

Those are a little bit different, and a little bit alike.

It's pretty straight-forward, actually. Keep in mind that we're focusing on Blogger and WordPress.com blogs, okay? If  you decide to use another blogging service, check with that service for how to create a blog with your own domain name.

Blogger

The cheapest way is with Blogger. It's free for hosting (as is WordPress.com) and the domain names are only $12/year. Domain names are through Google, which also owns Blogger.

First, go to https://www.blogger.com/ and login in or create an account and a blog. You should receive a popup offering to create a domain name for you. Go ahead and accept the offer, and let it look up some suggestions based on your blog name. You can also type in a domain name you want.

If it doesn't prompt you there, don't worry. From the main menu, in Settings > Basil, look to the Publishing section and you will see an option to Buy A Domain. Click that and you'll get a Google Domains popup.

Now, here's the bad news. Someone may already have that domain name. You may have to try a few things and look at a few suggestions to find one that's available and that you're happy with. But, once you do, you're good to go.

Well, after you actually buy it. It's probably $12 if it's a .com domain. If there's a Premium badge next to it, it means someone else bought it and is squatting on it in order to sell it.

If you already have a blog

If you already have a blog and are wanting to add your own domain name to it, just go to Settings > Basic and look in the Publishing section, as described above.

That's pretty much all there is to it. Google makes it kinda easy.

WordPress.com

It's pretty easy from WordPress.com, too. Go to https://www.wordpress.com/ and click Create Website.

WordPress will walk you through the setup, giving you options for the type of Website, a general layout, and general appearance, all of which can be skipped, or changed later if you like. They're just to set up the initial look and feel.

On Step 4, you get prompted for a domain name or keyword. This will be your Website address. If you want your own address (removing the "wordpress" from the URL) here's a good spot to do that. It's $36/year if  you select from this menu.

If you already have a blog

If you set up your blog without purchasing a domain name, you can always do that later.

From the main menu, look for Domains. Click that. Then look for the Add Domain button (see it in the image above?) and click it. You can then enter your choice for a domain name.

Again, pretty easy.

Summary

If you use Blogger for your blog, use Google Domains. If you use WordPress.com for your blog, use WordPress.com to register your domain.

Setting up your own blog

About 10 years ago, I posted a series about setting up your own blog. Looking back on it, a lot has changed.

When I looked at free blogging platforms, they included LiveJournal, which is now owned by Russians. Really.

Another free option was MSN Spaces. Remember that? No? Now you know why it isn't around any more.

There was AOL Journals. It's nowhere to be found.

There was ... um ... well, that was about it. Except for a couple called Blogger and WordPress.com.

At the time, I suggested those two and none of the other ones for free blogging. There may be some other decent free blogging platforms around, but I'm sticking with those two.

Paid options are available, too. WordPress.com has a paid option. Or, you can use a third-party Web host and install WordPress there. But, you'll need your own domain name for that. And that means we're getting ahead of ourselves.

But, this is a good time to talk about domain names.

Your Own Domain

Do you want your own domain name? If you use Blogger or WordPress.com, you don't need your own domain name to have a blog. But, if you want your own for whatever reason, then you have plenty of options. However, that means your blog is not really free.

If you don't care about your own domain name, skip to the next part. If you do, though, here are some options you have. There are more options than I'm going to mention. I'm just focusing on a few of the cheapest or most popular options.

Basic Registration

To get your own domain name, you'll pay around $12 ... or more. Often more. Sure, registrars will offer sale prices for multi-year or bundles with other services, but here's the basic one-year price (rounded to the nearest dollar) for some of the most popular registrars.

Google: $12 ($12 first year)
GoDaddy: $15 ($12 first year)
Network Solutions: $38 ($20 first year)

Many hosting companies will offer to register your domain for you, so you may find good prices if you go the hosting route. However, the idea here is to do it most economically.

Private Registration

Then, there's private registration. That is an extra service that's above and beyond the standard domain registration. It's totally up to you whether or not you want your information private. I choose to do that. If you don't, anyone can look up your name, address, and phone number. Nope. I'm going private.

Google: Free
GoDaddy: $10
Network Solutions: $16

Net Registration

Here's the yearly price for registering a domain and having the information private:

Google: $12
GoDaddy: $25
Network Solutions: $54

I've used all three of these services. I have moved all my domains to Google Domains because it's cheaper, the interface is easy to use, and it does everything I need it to do.

Choosing A Platform

If you don't want your own domain name, you'll likely want to use Blogger or WordPress.com for your blog. Your URL will be http://yourblog.blogspot.com or http://yourblog.wordpress.com

If you do want your own domain name, you can use a third-party for hosting, which means add around $100 or more per year to the cost.

Or, use either Blogger or WordPress.com for hosting. Here's the total yearly cost.

Blogger: $12 (hosting is free; $12 for domain registration)
WordPress.com: $18 ($13 for hosting; $5 for domain registration add-on to hosting; net is $18)

You can't register a domain name through WordPress.com unless you buy it with a hosting plan.

So, whether you get your own domain name or not, I'm suggesting Blogger or WordPress.com for your blog. I've used both. I like WordPress better, but not enough to justify the extra cost. For some, it's worth it.

Money Money Money

If you want to monetize your blog, fine. Keep in mind that if you bombard people with ads, that turns them off. I have ads on this little blog, but they don't get all up in your face. Blogger lets you put your own ads on your Website. They also have their own advertising service for which you may apply. I participate, but haven't made a lot of money on it. Very little, in face.

WordPress.com does not let you put ads on your Website. Well, they do, but that's with the $5,000/month package. They have their own advertising service that's available with the $100/year plan.

If you're going to pay WordPress.com $100/year to host your Website, you might as well pay a third-party host and get the full WordPress software, which is more setup, but lets you put ads on your Website.

Blogger clearly has the advantage in price on this topic.

Before we leave this topic, let me reiterate: if you attempt to monetize, don't be obtrusive with your ads. Put yourself in your readers' place.

Nuff said.

Summary

So, do you want your own domain name? If so, I'm suggesting to use Google domains. Cheaper.

For hosting, either WordPress.com or Blogger (Google). I'm suggesting Blogger because ... cheaper. Unless you aren't using your own domain name. Then they are the same price: free.

Avoiding Google's links penatlies

I haven't posted blogging tips in quite some time. One of the reasons is I haven't had anything new to offer. Well, that I got around to writing about.

Anyway, I ran across an article the other day about what Google has done to penalize Websites, particularly blogs, that are doing things that Google considers improper. The article is actually a couple of years old, but it does have some good information. I remember when Google started doing some of the things mentioned and the uproar it caused. However, Google's intent for this is, I believe, correct.

Some of the things that you shouldn't do include:

Link exchanges

Truth be told, I got away from that a long time ago. My links policy is, and for years has been "We don't do that." Here's the full policy.

Google came to this conclusion because it artificially raised a blogs' status. This little blog even benefitted from that. However, I began to get requests for link exchanges from, well, all kinds of blogs. Some were pretty much useless and were for the sole purpose of showing ads.

I finally decided that if someone was linking to me simply because I was linking to them, then my content wasn't something they'd normally link to. If they were legit, a link to my blog was actually a disservice to them. And, of course, the same was true from my end. So, my policy became I'll link to you if you want, whether or not I link back. And I won't promise to link to you. If I want to, I will, and if I don't I won't. Treat me the same way.

My reason wasn't exactly the same as Google's, but the result was the same. No link exchanges.

Don't do it.

Blog networks

Google doesn't like blog networks. They feel it artificially raises the members' status. And they're correct.

Some networks were created solely for the purpose of raising blog status. Some were for other reasons. I've participated in both.

A network for the sake of helping readers interested in certain topics easily find other blogs of interest is, I think, a good thing. But, those networks still do artificially raise the status of members. I understand Google's reasons for this. It's unfortunate (for interest networks, not links networks) but it's a reality.

There are 15 more items the article talks about. It's actually a pretty good read, despite being over two years old. Read it here.

How Not To Bulk Email

I'll be following up later with a post about the cat-fight going on between the cable company that services my area and the local ABC affiliate.

But, in my inquiries of trying to obtain more information about it, the GM of the local channel (WTVM) committed a horrible error in judgement in the way he responded.

You see, he sent an email to 417 addresses.

That's not what's so bad. What's so bad is how he did it.

He put all 417 address in the "to" field of the email!

Now, you might be asking yourself why that's a bad thing.

Well, let me tell you why.

Let's suppose for a second that someone has a vulnerable computer. Let's call him Doofus.

Now, let's suppose that Doofus and 416 other people contact a businessman -- let's call him Lee -- about something.

Now, let's suppose that one of those other 416 people is ... you. We'll call that person You.

Lee gets a bunch of emails. From You. From Doofus. And from 415 others. And he decides to respond to them all with a single email. This is reasonable, since he's being bombarded with a bunch of emails all talking about the same thing.

So, anyway, Lee composes an email to send to everyone that emailed him.

And he includes all 417 email addresses -- including Doofus and You -- in the "to" field for the email.

Now, here's what happens. You, Doofus, and 415 others get an email. And all 417 of you can see the email addresses of the others. That in and of itself is bad form.

But it gets worse.

Remember that Doofus has a vulnerable computer. He either doesn't have good security software running on his computer. Or it's out of date. Or something. The bottom line is, Doofus' computer is vulnerable.

So vulnerable that he's got a computer that's infected with something nasty.

And that something nasty is a program that harvests email addresses.

That is to say, it's checking Doofus' incoming emails and harvesting addresses.

And because of Doofus, everyone else on that email is now part of the list of the harvesting program. And everyone is going to start getting a s**tload of spam.

Now, what should Lee have done?

He should have included the addresses in the "bcc" field.

That way, when the harvesting program that's running on Doofus' computer tries to harvest emails, it's not going to get anything new.

You see, it already had Doofus' email address. That's how Doofus got the malware to begin with.

It already had Lee's email address because it got it when Doofus emailed Lee to start with.

But it didn't get the other 416 email addresses.

So, bloggers, if you ever have the need or strong desire to send emails to a lot of people, be sure to use the "bcc" field and not the "to" field.

Using the "to" field can cause grief to the whole list if just one of the people to whom it's sent has harvesting malware.

Using the "bcc" field will at least show care and concern over those on your list. It's being a good email neighbor.

And it keeps you from becoming a Doofus, too.

Using FeedBurner with Blogger, Part II

Last time, we talked about setting up FeedBurner with your Blogger (Blogspot) blog.

We covered creating your FeedBurner account, adding you blog's feed to FeedBurner, then putting a link to your FeedBurner feed in your sidebar.

Now, we're going to look at extending the FeedBurner functionality for your Blogger blog.

Express Yourself With Flare

Sorta like Chotchkie's wants you to express yourself with "flair," FeedBurner encourages you to express yourself with flare.

That is, add functionality to your posts.

But, unlike Chotchkie's, if you want to use less than 11, that's okay.

FeedBurner's Flare allows you add links to email the post, Technorati links, comment count, CCL, del.icio.us, Digg this, Facebook, Stumble Upon, and more.

Okay, Stumble Upon isn't included, but it can easily be added.

Activate Flare

To activate Flare, from your FeedBurner account, click "Optimize," then scroll down to FeedFlare in the menu on the left.

Click "FeedFlare."

You'll be presented with a list of 12 items. You probably won't use them all.

For instance, if your blog has multiple authors, you probably don't want to select "Email The Author," since it will send all emails to you, instead of the actual author. If you are the only author on your blog, then it's simply up to you whether or not to supply your email address.

Another item you probably don't want to select is one of the "del.icio.us" links. One if the old method, one is the new method. Pick one or the other, if you want to include del.icio.us links.

And, if your blog does a good job of showing the number of comments, you might want to skip "Comments Count" ... at least the "Site" link.

Oh, a good rule of thumb on any of these items: It's probably not a bad idea to use them. They all help expose your posts ... and your blog ... to the world.

Once you've selected the items you want in your Flare, scroll down and click the "Activate" button.

Even More Flare

Just like Chotchkie's, you can have even more Flare.

To add "Stumble Upon" to your Flare, scroll down to the "Personal FeedFlare" section and add this to the field:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/stumble_flare.xml

Then click "Add New Flare."

Then, select the checkbox(es) for "Stumble It!" then scroll down and click "Save."

Adding The Flare

Just because you've activated Flare doesn't mean it shows up on your post. Sure, it'll start appearing in your feeds ... at least the items you checked in the "Feed" column will.

But to have the Flare show up with your posts, you have a little more to do.

Modifying Your Old Blogger Template

Scroll down to the bottom of the FeedFlare page. You see where it says "Get the HTML code to put FeedFlare on your site"?

In that dropdown box, select Blogger.

A new window will open with instructions for adding the code to your templates. See where it says "Show me the Old Blogger steps?" Click that. Then follow those instructions.

Here's essentially what they say do:

In the FeedBurner pop-up window (with the instructions), select the contents of the box "1. Copy this code" under "Edit Blogger Templates." Copy the selected tex. (You can use your mouse: right-click > copy. You can use your keyboard: CTRL-C.)

In a separate window/tab, log in to your Blogger account.

From your Blogger Dashboard, click "Template" then "Edit HTML."

NOTE: Before you go any further, you need to back up your template. Never, never, never make any changes to your Blogger template's HTML without making a backup. Trust me on this. Don't learn the hard way!

Scroll down to where you see: <p class="post-footer">

Just above that, add a couple of blank lines. Hitting "Enter" twice will do that. This is simply to make this new code easy to read.

Paste the code (CTRL-V), then hit Enter again. That puts another empty line, making it easy to see and find.

Click "Save Template" and you're done. Almost.

Modifying Your New Blogger Template

Scroll down to the bottom of the FeedFlare page. You see where it says "Get the HTML code to put FeedFlare on your site"?

In that dropdown box, select Blogger.

A new window will open with instructions for adding the code to your templates. Follow those instructions.

Okay, here's essentially what they say do:

In the FeedBurner pop-up window (with the instructions), select the contents of the box "1. Copy this code" under "Edit Blogger Layouts." Copy the selected tex. (You can use your mouse: right-click > copy. You can use your keyboard: CTRL-C.)

From your Blogger Dashboard, click "Template" then select "Edit HTML."

Check the box next to "Expand Widget Templates."

Scroll down till you see <div class='post-footer'>

Right after that, place your cursor, then hit Enter a couple of times. You're creating new lines to make this code easier to see and find.

Paste the code (CTRL-V), then hit Enter again. That puts another empty line, making it easy to see and find.

Click "Save Template" and you're done. Almost.

Suppose You Don't See The Flare?

If you don't see the Flare, don't sweat it.

You see, it takes a while for it to show up the first time.

Give it a few hours. Or more. Maybe even a day.

As long as your posts still look okay, there's not a problem.

But if you want to check it, you'll have to look at your HTML code.

Not your template, but the source of your blog. From your browser.

From Firefox, hit CTRL-U. From Internet Explorer, click View > Sourse.

In the new window/popup, hit CTRL-F, then type "feedburner" (without the quotes). You may have to click "Find Next" a couple of time. But you should see the FeedBurner code (it's JavaScript) that will make the Flare appear.

If that code is there, you're probably okay.

That's It?

That's a lot, but that's what you have to do to add Flare to your posts.

The advantages include a single interface to add Stumble Upon, Digg This, Technorati, and other features to your blog posts.

The disadvantage? If FeedBurner's Website goes down or is running slow, it will slow down your blog's loading. No, it doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

A lot of people find it's worth it. You'll have to make the decision yourself about whether or not it's worth it to you.

It is to me.

Using FeedBurner with Blogger

Most blogging platforms ... Blogger (BlogSpot) included ... include feeds. Blogger has had Atom feeds for some time. The new version of Blogger also includes RSS feeds.

But that's not the only way to provide feeds.

The popular service FeedBurner also works with Blogger. Both the new version (the one with widgets) and the older version.

First Things First

The first thing you need is a FeedBurner account. You can get a free account ... or you can get the expanded functionality of a paid account. For our discussion here, we'll assume a free account.

Add Your Blog

Once your FeedBurner account is set up, you'll be able to add feeds to your account. This is possible if you have just one blog ... or if you have multiple blogs.

On the FeedBurner home page, enter your blog's URL, click "I'm a podcaster" if you're a podcaster (we'll assume you are not; if you don't know if you are, then you are not), then click "Next."

If you don't have any feeds set up, you need to set up a feed. From your Dashboard, go to Settings > Site Feed. Set up a feed for your posts. You may also set up feeds for Comments via the Advanced Mode link.

Unless your blog is really, really old (at least, it's been around for a while), you likely will have two possibilities: Atom and RSS. We're going to choose RSS.

Name Your Feed

If all goes well (and it should), you'll be presented with the chance to name your feed. It will likely pre-populate with the selections you'll want, though you can customize this information.

Once everything's as you want (and the default selections are likely just fine), click the "Activate Feed" button.

If all goes well (and it should), click "Next."

You'll get the option to "Go Pro." That is, pay for extended features. It's you option. You can do that now, do it later, or never do it at all.

For now, we'll assume you're not going pro at this time. Click "Next."

Now For The Tricky Part

How you proceed next depends on whether or not you use the new Blogger templates or the old Blogger templates.

First, the old Blogger templates, then the new Blogger templates.

Modifying Your Old Blogger Template

On your FeedBurner account (that's where we already were; we had just clicked "Next," remember?), click the "Publicize" tab.

Find "Chicklet Chooser" in the menu on the left. We're going to accept the default (the big orange one).

Scroll almost all the way down, to theHTML in the box, right above the Widget selection. Pay no attention to the Widget box. That's for the new Blogger templates. If you have the new Blogger templatess, you should be reading that section.

Open a new window (or tab) and sign in to your Blogger account.

From the Dashboard, go to Template > Edit HTML.

NOTE: Before you go any further, you need to back up your template. Never, never, never make any changes to your Blogger template's HTML without making a backup. Trust me on this. Don't learn the hard way!

Find a spot in your sidebar for the code. A good place is right before or after the "Powered by Blogger" button that you may have in the sidebar.

Once you've placed it, click "Save Template Changes."

Modifying Your New Blogger Template

On your FeedBurner account (that's where we already were; we had just clicked "Next," remember?), click the "Publicize" tab.

Find "Chicklet Chooser" in the menu on the left. We're going to accept the default (the big orange one).

Scroll all the way down to where it says "Use widget in TypePad/Blogger". Select"Blogger." Then click "Go."

A new window will open. If you have more than one Blogger/Blogspot blog, select the one you're building a feed for. You can also change the text in the "Title" box if you wish.

Click "Add Widget."

You'll be sent to the Template > Page Elements page, where you can move the widget to the desired location in the Sidebar. Once you're happy with that, click "Save."

Now What?

Now, you can get fancy. Like using FeedFlare. That is, taking advantage of some of the functions that FeedBurner has to offer. Like emailing the post, Technorati links, comment count, CCL, del.icio.us, Digg this, Facebook, Stumble Upon, and more.

We'll cover that next time.

Using WordPress Widgets

One of the cool things about WordPress ... and some other blogging systems ... is the ability to easily customize your site layout with Widgets.

Blogger (the new version), TypePad, and WordPress all have the ability to customize your sidebar content by using Widgets.

Today, we're going to talk about WordPress Widgets. We'll talk about TypePad and Blogger on a later date.

You Gotta Have Widgets To Use Widgets

First of all, in order to take advantage of Widgets, your theme must support Widgets. Not all do. If your theme doesn't, you can "Widgetize" your theme. But we're not going to cover how to do that. Not now, anyway.

So, how do you know if your theme supports Widgets?

Actually, it's pretty easy to find out.

First, turn on Widgets.

From your Wordpress Dashboard, click Plugins.

Note that if you are using Wordpress.com, you don't have that option. Wordpress.com is a WPMU platform (WordPress Multi-User) and not a standard WordPress platform.

If you use Blogsome (adapted from WordPress 1.5.1 alpha) or ItsAPundit (WPMU 1.0), you have a Plugins tab. (Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com.).

If you use standard Wordpress (current version is 2.1, but this should work for most other versions, too), click the Plugins tab.

Scroll down to Sidebar Widgets (current version is 1.2.1.20070210b, but this should work for most versions).

Click Activate.

Note: Widgets should already be active for WPMU-type blogs (such as Blogsome, ItsAPundit, and Wordpress.com; Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com.).

Once Widgets are active, you should turn on the Widgets you want to use. Google Search, del.icio.us are usually available with the default Widgets pack, but need to be activated. Most other Widgets (including, but not limited to Search, Calendar, Meta, Categories, Archives, Links, among others) are automatically included.

I Don't Have Widgets. Now What?

If you don't have the option to turn on Widgets, that means one of two things.

Either:

1. Widgets are turned on by default and you can't turn them off (you're using a WPMU or similar blogging system)


2. or, Widgets aren't available.

If you're using Wordpress.com or ItsAPundit (Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com.), Widgets are already on. Blogsome doesn't support Widgets.

Even if you can't turn Widgets on via the Plugins tab, you may still have the ability to use Widgets. Keep reading.

I Have Widgets. Now What?

Now that Widgets are activated (or might be activated), check your theme to see if it supports Widgets.

From the Dashboard, click Presentation.

If you have Widgets activated, and if your theme supportes Widgets, then you'll have a tab called Sidebar Widgets.

If you don't have that tab, you don't have Widgets. Sorry.

Click Sidebar Widgets.

You should see a Sidebar box for each sidebar. Most themes have one, some have two. Some even have more than two. Depends on the theme.

You should also see a box called Available Widgets.

Click and drag the items you want to the sidebar. They will appear in the order you arrange them. And you can rearrange them by dragging them up or down.

Some of the Widgets need to be configured. Some don't need to be configured but can be. Some cannot be configured.

For instance, the standard Search widget isn't configurable. Likewise, the standard Links and the standard Recent Posts widgets aren't configurable.

Some themes ... and some third-party widgets that can be installed (not possible with WPMU sites like Wordpress.com or ItsAPundit -- Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com.) ... extend the capabilities of these widgets and allow you to configure them.

Configurable widgets can be configured by clicking the Configure icon on the right-hand side of the widget (you may have to pull it to the sidebar before you can configure it).

For example, the standard Categories widget can be configured to allow you to choose a different title, whether or not to show the number of posts in each category, and whether or not to show a heirarchy of categories.

Some Widgets require configuration. The Text Widgets, for example. Just dragging them out there without configuring them serves no purpose. You have to enter the text you want to display to make it meaningful.

Note for WPMU (ItsAPundit.com -- Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com., WordPress.com, etc.): You cannot enter JavaScript into a Text Widget. Sure, you can enter it, but WPMU strips it out.

WordPress.com doesn't allow JavaScript or forms. So you can't use full Site Meter functionality. Or Google AdSense. Or PayPal.

ItsAPundit.com provides Widgets for these items, giving you most, if not all, functionality. Full disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.

Once you have placed and configured all your Widgets, click Save Changes.

Open a separate window/tab and look at your blog.

Like what you see? Great. You're running Widgets. And you can adjust your sidebar via Widgets to add, remove, or rearrange stuff that goes there.

It's Wrong! Horribly Wrong!

If things look wrong, horribly wrong, you can do one of two things.

First, check to make sure you have the widgets arranged in the order you want.

Then, check to make sure you have configured the widgets that need to be configured.

If all that fails, re-read these instructions, re-doing anything you missed.

If you still have a problem, it's going to take more work to get them right. This is unusual, but not impossible.

So, if Widgets aren't working right, remove them.

Either go to Plugins and turn off () Widgets.

Or go to Presentation > Sidebar Widgets and drag them all off of the sidebar to the Available Widgets box. Then click Save Changes.

Everything should be fine.

What's Next?

If you're liking this whole Widgets thingy, and want to do more with it, you have a couple of options.

If you are running Wordpress, look for more Widgets. If you're on a WPMU site (Wordpress.com, ItsAPundit.com, etc), you're pretty much limited to what they offer. But it never hurts to ask.

Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with ItsAPundit.com.

When Things Go Wrong

Missed writing Headlines last night. I couldn't blog.

Oh, I could access the blog. But I couldn't edit any posts.

You see, when I do Headlines, I'll have one window open to the blog and another open to news sites.

After I find a Headline that lends itself to something silly, I'll enter it in the post in the blog window, then save it as a draft. That way, if something goes wrong, I only lose the most recent Headline. I learned that the hard way.

But last night, something went wrong. Horribly wrong.

I couldn't edit the post I had started. And not only that, I couldn't edit any post. And I had no idea why.

My first thought was that a file was corrupt. You see, a blog ... and most Web sites and Web applications ... is made up of a bunch of files. And if something goes wrong with one file, the whole thing could crash. Or one critical piece could crash. And that's what I was encountering: the edit portion wasn't working.

All I got was a solid white page when I opened a post to edit it. And I had no idea why.

So, I'm logging on to the server and looking at the files. File sizes. Opening the files and looking at the code. And with all the possible files that could go wrong ... at least for someone who doesn't know all that much about the parts of the Web application.

Found nothing wrong.

Other than that it wouldn't let me edit a post.

I'm here to tell you, a plain white page when you're supposed to be on your blog is a scary thing.

After finding nothing wrong with the individual pages (that took a while), I decided to check the database.

Now, if you ever open a process to directly edit your database, you have to be careful. Very careful. Because one stray character ... or one missing character ... can blow the whole thing up.

So, I'm looking through the database, trying to find something that looks wrong. And, since I don't know exactly what to expect just by looking, I'm proceeding slow and careful, searching all the WordPress documentation I can find.

Finally, after all that, I decided to do something I should have done to start with.

You see, WordPress ... all by itself ... works rather well. But there's a lot it doesn't do.

But people come up with ways to make it do things it otherwise wouldn't do. WordPress calls these things you can add "plug-ins."

And it's a well-known fact (okay, not as well-known as it should be) that when something goes wrong with WordPress, the Plug-ins are the first thing to check.

So I turned them off. Every one of them.

Things started working again.

So, I had to go back and turn them back on.

That takes a while. You see, I'm running 27 plug-ins.

Yeah, that's a lot. I know it.

But I use Widgets in the sidebar. And 11 of them are for the sidebar. Others have to do with spam fighting (5 plugins for that), inline trackbacks that are so popular (4 for that), and other little things I like for one reason or another.

So, for some reason, one or more of the plug-ins caused a problem.

Turning them off fixed it. Then turning them back on, one at a time, things still worked.

So, if this happens again, I'll turn the plug-ins off to see if it fixes itself. Then turn them back on. Instead of spending several hours looking in the wrong place for the problem.

Lesson learned.

And if this saves you several hours of frustration and aggrevation, it's worth it.

Use A Firewall

Our blog tips have been covering setting up a blog, including looking at several platforms.

But there's one thing that we need to cover before we cover other blogging tips.

This tip is for bloggers. And for people who just read blogs. And for folks that use the Internet.

Have a firewall on your computer.

Operating system considerations

Most folks use Windows. And most Windows users use Windows XP. Around 75%, by some reports, with all Windows operating systems (98, NT, XP, 2000, 2003, etc) making up nearly 90%.

The remaining 10% are mostly Mac or Linux.

Mac OSX has a built-in firewall that can't easily be turned off.

Most Linux distributions come with a firewall, too.

Windows XP also comes with a firewall that's enabled by default. At least, XP Service Pack 2 does.

Whatever operating system you have (and for most folks, that's a version of Windows), you should use a firewall.

What if you don't have a firewall?

Picking A Blogging Platform: WordPress.com II

Continuing our look at blogging platforms, we're looking at paid services. And today, we're looking at WordPress.com.

Yes, we looked at WordPress.com a little while back ... when we were looking at free platforms. But there's a paid version of WordPress.com. Sort of.

WordPress.com is not WordPress

We convered this before, but we need to cover it again, because it confuses lots of people: WordPress.com is not the same as WordPress.

Here's the difference. WordPress is a blogging software application. If you have WordPress, you still need a Web host.

WordPress.com is a service of Automattic. It's a free blogging service that runs a version of the WordPress software called WordPress MU.

Yes, WordPress is a platform. So is WordPress.com. WordPress software is free. But it doesn't include hosting. WordPress.com is a blogging service that includes hosting, but has limitations. Earlier, we talked about using WordPress.com as your blogging platform. And we will again.

Here's why we're talking about it again.

WordPress.com Is Free, But...

Yes, you can use WordPress.com for free. But there are some functions that you can buy as an upgrade. And that's what we're going to focus on today.

Reviewing briefly, the free version includes:

• Categories


• Nested categories


• TrackBacks


• Spam filtering via Akismet


• Schedule posts


• Extended posts ("Read the rest..." kind of thing)


• A large selection of templates (50, as of this week)


• Widgets (in most templates)


• Image hosting (within total disk limit of 50 MB)

There's also lots you can't do with the free version:

• You can't edit your templates


• No JavaScript (which means limited SiteMeter functionality, no Blogrolling.com blog rolls, or anything else that requires JavaScript


• No ads. The Terms Of Service (TOS) don't explicitly forbid it, but the FAQ says no ads

The free version of WordPress.com serves most bloggers' needs. But not all. That's where the "paid version" comes in.

Paying For Upgrades

WordPress.com has upgrades available. For a yearly fee, you can get functionality added to your site. But right now, only a few upgrades are available.

The first upgrade WordPress.com offered was custom CSS. It costs $15/year for this. If you're really, really good with CSS, you'll love this. I've used it, and it's quite powerful and effective for templates that are designed with this feature in mind. The bad news is that most templates weren't built with this in mind. The WordPress.com verison of the Sandbox theme is very customizable, I've found.

The next is unlimited private users. This only matters if you want to have a private blog. By default, WordPress will allow 35 "members" of a private blog. The $30/year upgrade gives you unlimited members.

You own domain name will cost you either $10/year or $15/year. If you already own your domain name, then it's $10/year. If you need to register a domain name, $15/year covers that, too.

The latest upgrade is extra disk space. Since you can upload images for your WordPress.com blog to their servers (but currenly can't delete them), you may run out of space eventually, since the limit is 50 MB. You can add from 1 GB ($20/year) to 10 GB ($90/year).

Currently, there are no upgrades that address the JavaScript limitations, HTML editing, or ads. You still can't have that, even with paid upgrades.

Worth It?

Is it worth it? Well, maybe. Personally, I find that you can get all these features, and more, for less with another hosting service.

But, if you only want one or two of these features (say, domain name or custom CSS), then it's probably cheaper to go this route than a standard Web host.

Next

We'll continue to look at paid services for blogging. And we seek your input on paid blogging services.

Picking A Blogging Platform: TypePad

We've looked at free blogging services and platforms such as Blogger, WordPress.com, and Blogsome for launching a blog. Actually, we also looked at LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, MySpace, and AOL. I didn't care much for those four. But the other three, I like.

Now, it should be stated that I run active blogs on Blogger and WordPress.com. I also run blogs on the WordPress platform (yes, there's a difference between WordPress and WordPress.com). Just so you know where I'm coming from.

TypePad Has Three Flavors

SixApart, who owns TypePad, offers their TypePad service in three levels: Basic, Plus, and Pro.

Basic

The lowest level of TypePad will run you $5/month. Okay, $4.95 ... which might as well be $5.00, right? Or, if you buy a year, you get two months free. That is, a year is $49.50 ... the cost of 10 months at the monthly rate.

You get all the standard blog features like a professional design/templates, categories, comment management, selecting and rearranging the items in the sidebar (or sidebars), support for TrackBacks, and some customization (mostly colors) of templates such as colors, fonts, and borders.

With the Basic plan, you get 100MB of storage and 2GB of bandwidth per month. That's not bad for beginning blogs. Heck, it's not bad for most veteran blogs. It's more than plenty for my little blog.

The drawback for the Basic plan? It supports only one blog (which is fine for most people) ... and only one author, which means no co-bloggers or guest bloggers.

TypePad Plus

In addition to the Basic plan, TypePad also included a "Plus" plan. It'll run you $8.95/month, or $89.50/year, the same discount rate as the Basic plan: 12 months for the price of 10.

TypePad Plus has all the features of the Basic plan, of course, plus additional customization ability, like changing the blog header image.

Plus also gives you 500MB of storage and 5GB of bandwidth per month. And, though it only supports a single blog, you can have up to three authors.

TypePad Pro

The top tier of the TypePad family runs $14.95/month or $149.50/year (12 months for the price of 10 again). With it, you can completely customize ... or build ... your own template. There's no limit to what you can do with the code. It uses the MovableType platform and code standards for that.

The other big things are the 1GB of storage and 10GB of bandwidth per month, and unlimited blogs and unlimited authors.

The Upside

TypePad is a stable platform. Although any platform can experience outages, my experience with them (about a year) was that they were there. Not a lot of downtime. And that's a very good thing.

It's actually pretty easy to use. There's no setup issues, since it's hosted by SixApart.

There is some spam-fighting functionality available. CAPTCHA can be turned on, as well as TypeKey authentication.

Comment moderation is also supported, as well as IP address banning.

With all versions of TypePad, you can use your own domain name. You don't have to, of course. But you can.

The Downside

Besides not being free ($4.95 - $14.95 a month), publishing is a little more complicated that WordPress, but no more so than Blogger. The whole blog republishes each time you make a change to your layout or content. Most changes (new post or update to a post) requrie extensive republishing of files.

Although the platform doesn't experience a lot of downtime, the length of time it takes to publish a blog sometimes means errors and having to publish again. And again. At least, that was my experience.

When you have multiple authors, they don't have quite the range of ability you get in other paid platforms. TypePad falls way behind WordPress (not WordPress.com) in this respect.

Despite the spam-fighting functionality that TypePad has, it still falls way short of WordPress' Akismet and other plug-ins for battling spam.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention the thing about TypePad that really ticked me off most: Problems with TrackBacks. Their filtering system is buggy. And they were in a constant state of denial about there being a problem. Which was really, really irritating. (Thanks to RightWingProf for reminding me.)
Bottom Line

Despite it's shortcomings, I like TypePad. It's relatively easy to use, relatively inexpensive for the Basic plan, and looks good.

Content is always the most important thing on a blog, but an ugly blog means no one will read your wonderful content. TypePad blogs look good. Unless somewith with no sense of style uses the Pro version and creates a really bad template.

All in all, I like TypePad.

Other Paid Platforms

We'll look at another paid platform: WordPress.com ... yes, the free platform has a paid version.

Picking A Blogging Platform: Other Free Services

We've looked at Blogger, WordPress.com, and Blogsome as possible free platforms for starting up a blog. All three have their good points and bad points.

But those aren't the only free services there are. But they are the only ones I like.

But that doesn't mean they are the only good ones. And I'd like to hear from you about others.

But first, hear from me.

Picking A Blogging Platform: Blogsome

We're looking at free blogging platforms. Last time, we looked at WordPress.com. Today we're looking at Blogsome.

Like WordPress.com, Blogsome is a free, WordPress MU site. That is, it runs the multi-user version of WordPress, called WordPress MU. But there's a critical difference. Or two. Or so.

Versions

First, Blogsome is using WordPress 1.5.1a ... an older version of WordPress. Some like it better. Others like the newer WordPress better. Personally, other than some slight differences in the interface, there's not a lot of end-user difference.

Blogsome is similar to WordPress.com. Actually, Blogsome has been around longer. It's a product of Browse The World, Ltd. in Ireland.

Templates/Themes

You can actually edit the templates in Blogsome. WordPress.com won't allow you to edit the templates at all ... other than adding custom CSS, which is a paid upgrade. This editing feature gives Blogsome extra flexibility that you don't get with WordPress.com.

WordPress.com offers more themes than Blogsome. A handful of them are the same, but the rest are quite different. WordPress.com's selections generally have a more "professional" appearance, but that doesn't mean a better appearance. Remember that "professional" can also looked "canned" or "cookie-cutter." To me, the main difference is that WordPress.com offers more themes.

Plugins

Blogsome has some plugins available for you to use if you wish. Not many, to be sure, but some. And while you can't add other plugins (you're limited to what they decide to offer), some is better than none. With WordPress.com, you don't have such an option. Features such as the Akismet spam filter are included in WordPress.com, but you can't turn them on or off (not that you'd ever want to).

The spam filter used by Blogsome, Spaminator, appears to no longer be in development. At least, the URL for the development site doesn't work. That doesn't mean Spaminator doesn't work. I've received reports that it catches most, but not all, spam. However, that's true for Akismet, Spam Karma, and other plugins.

Adding Scripts & Advertisements

You can add script to your pages, but there's a special way to do that, involving a custom tag. Still, it gives you functionality you don't get with WordPress.com.

Blogsome allows ads. Not unlimited ads, but some ads are okay. WordPress.com doesn't allow ads. This may not be important to you. In fact, there are many that prefer WordPress.com simply because they don't allow ads. However, WordPress.com is experimenting with inserting "unobtrusive" ads on sites, although the site owner can't add ads.

Summary

Blogsome offers some functionality that Blogger and WordPress.com don't have. But it's not as customizable as Blogger. And while it doesn't offer the full functional ability to modify your template code, it allows you to change almost anything and everything, which is functionality that WordPress.com doesn't have.

To me, Blogsome is well worth considering as a free blogging platform.

Next

Next time, we'll look at a few other free services, and tell you why we don't like them.

Picking A Blogging Platform: WordPress.com

We're looking at free blogging platforms. Last time, we looked at Blogger. Today, we're going to look at WordPress.com.

WordPress.com is not WordPress

First, let's consider the thing that confuses lots of people. WordPress.com is not the same as WordPress.

Here's the difference. WordPress is a blogging software application. If you have WordPress, you still need a Web host.

WordPress.com is a service of Automattic. It's a free blogging service that runs a version of the WordPress software called WordPress MU.

Yes, WordPress is a platform. So is WordPress.com. WordPress software is free. But it doesn't include hosting. WordPress.com is a free blogging service that includes hosting, but has limitations. Today, we're going to talk about using WordPress.com as your blogging platform.

What You Get

WordPress.com is an easy-to-use platform. It supports categories -- nested categories ... for example, sports, then football under sports, then college football under football, pro football under football, and so on.

WordPress.com also has native support for TrackBacks. If you don't know about TrackBacks, we'll talk in detail later.

Spam filtering is also included. Automattic's Akismet filter works very well. It's not perfect, but it's darn good.

You can schedule posts. While classic blogging doesn't include the concept of scheduled posts, some bloggers like to schedule stuff to appear at a date or time in the future.

Extended posts are also possible. That is, a post having an intro or tease, followed by "Read the rest..." kind of thing. Not used by a lot of bloggers, but it's nice to have when you want to use it.

WordPress.com also offers a good selection of templates. Most look really good.

Widgets are also included in WordPress.com blogs. Well, in most templates, anyway.

What You Don't Get

WordPress.com will not let you edit your templates, like you can with Blogger. Widgets to offer the ability to include HTML (text, links, images, etc.) in the sidebar, you can't include JavaScript. Which means no standard SiteMeter -- though you can use the limited stats version.

No JavaScript also means no Blogrolling.com blog rolls. However, WordPress.com does support multiple blog roll, albeit in a slightly confusing maner involving categories and tags.

WordPress.com doesn't allow you include ads on your site. Well, actually, the Terms Of Service (TOS) don't explicitly forbid it, and there are ways of including ads using standard HTML. However, the FAQ says ads are a no-no. So, no ads.

Domain Names

You can't have your own domain name for free. That is, your blog's domain name will include wordpress.com as part of the URL. Just like Blogger.

With Blogger, you can use your own domain name if you host it elsewhere (for a fee paid to your host), and still use Blogger for creating your blog.

With WordPress.com, you can use your own domain name for a $15/year fee ($10/year, if you already own your domain name) and have WordPress.com still host it.

Bottom line on domain names: Just like everywhere, you can't get your own domain name for free. It costs extra. But it's really cheap with WordPress.com.

The Verdict

WordPress.com offers some stuff Blogger doesn't. Blogger offers some stuff WordPress.com doesn't.

I have free blogs running on each platform. Either is an excellent choice, depending on which features appeal to you the most.

Next Up

Next time, we'll look at another free WordPress hosting service: Blogsome.

Picking A Blogging Platform: Blogger

Now that you've decided to blog ... you need a place to blog from. You need a host. And a blogging platform.

Here's the thing: you can get both from the same place. Not all the time, of course, but lots of times.

And there are two ways to go: free and paid.

What's the difference? Well, more than money.

Let's talk about free services. I'm going to limit it to two services: Blogger and WordPress.com.

First, be aware that not all WordPress blogs are WordPress.com blogs. But we'll talk about that later. Right now, let's talk about Blogger.

The Blogger Platform

Blogger is a free blogging platform that started in 1999 by three friends in San Francisco who ran Pyra Labs. It took off. And Google bought Blogger in 2002.

It's still a free platform, and it's quite customizable. You can do just about anything with its template ... if you know HTML.

Blogger supports posting of images and of YouTube and similar videos. It also allows comments, along with word verification (for reducing spam) and comment moderation (also for reducing spam and trolls) features you can enable.

Blogger also offers 31 standard templates ... all of which can be modified in just about any way you like. If you know HTML. And you can modify the templates to include add-ons, such as a TrackBack service or alternate commenting services.

The Down Side

Some people don't like Blogger because it's owned by Google. And some people don't like Google. If you're someone who's passionate about Google ... in the negative sense ... then the Google ownership is a minus.

Blogger doesn't offer native TrackBack support. Yes, you can add code from HaloScan, but unless you want to use HaloScan for both comments and TrackBacks, then you have to manually add the HaloScan code ... and that can be a little bit frustrating.

You can't have your own domain name with Blogger ... for free. Now, to be fair, that's true of any free blogging platform. Yes, WordPress.com offers domain names, but not for free. And we're not talking WordPress.com yet. The point is, your URL will be yourblogname.blogspot.com. Some think of this as a minus.

Clarification: You can have your own domain name with blogger, but it would be hosted elsewhere, and there are fees involved: domain name ownership ... and hosting fees. Without paying out money, your Blogger blog will have a blogspot.com domain name.
Of the top ten blogs in TTLB's Ecosystem, 1-9 have their own domain name. Hugh Hewitt has a townhall.com URL. Of numbers 11-30, all but 2 have their own domain name. Only Eschaton has a Blogger (blogspot.com) address and Andrew Sullivan has a TypePad (blogs.com) site via Time. So, having a Blogger domain doesn't mean you can't succeed. But there is that feeling that many have.

Other issues that some have with Blogger include:

• It's annoying to have to republish the entire blog for small edits
• Not supporting categories
• Not offering extended entry functionality ("More..." or "Click to continue...")
• Unhappy with the general appearance of Templates. That is, a Blogger blog looks like a Blogger blog.
• Fixed width Templates
• 300-post limit on the edit page
• Inability to schedule posts for future publishing
• Difficulty for beginners to edit the Templates
• Service disruptions
• No window-esque, drop-and-drag interface to use when creating a blog

Just so you know, some of these are being address in Blogger's new version ... that's not yet been released. It's still in beta. But it's coming. Not all these issues are addressed, but some are. Particularly the "Blogger look" and the drag-and-drop interface.

The Up Side

It's free. And, despite the occasional outage, it's usually up. About as much as any other host. The reason Blogger outages get so much attention is because so many people use it. If Blogger is down for 20 minutes, millions and millions are affected, and the total blogs downtime is huge: 20 minutes times millions. Not sure how many years that is. So, Blogger outages are actually rate. They just affect lots of folks when they do happen. Did I mention it's free?

New features are being added. In the last couple of years, comment moderation, open comments (not requiring logging in to comment), photo/video publishing, new templates, Backlinks (not quite the same as TrackBacks, but a good idea that will become great when they get all the bugs out), and more have been added.

Blogger is a good choice for starting your first blog. But it's not the only choice.

Next time: WordPress.com as a blogging platform

Starting Your Blog, Part 1

Ever since the Alliance went inactive, I've not done much in the way of Blog Tips. Of course, I hadn't done much lately before that. Just lazy, I guess.

But, I've still encountered things that have made me think, "I ought to do a blog tips post on that..." before remembering there was no active Alliance where I'd post it.

Well, I'm going to post them anyway. Here.

So, let's start at the beginning. That is, starting up your blog.

Okay, we won't start there. We'll start with why I think I'm qualified to write such a thing.

Well, I'm a blogger. I started a blog.

I can hear some of you now: "I started a blog, too! Why does Basil think he's so special?"

Well, I don't. You're perfectly welcome to post your own tips, too.

On your own darn blog.

But ... you can certainly link to it here.

Provided proper blogging etiquette is followed. And we'll cover that, soon. Or, you can comment about what I write, of course. Just stay on topic. Oh, wait. I said I'd cover etiquette later.

So, no, I don't think I'm someone special who knows everything about blogging. But I'm going to blog about blogging today. Cause it's my blog, you know.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk about starting up your own blog.

Starting Your Blog, Step 1

Why do you want to blog? What do you plan to do with it?

You may wonder just how important this step is. I think most people think it's most important of all. Me? Not so sure.

Let me explain.When you get right down to it, here's why you're blogging: Because you want to.

Seriously, I really think that's why you're blogging. Or are about to start blogging.

Okay, sure. You might have that one thing. That gimmick. That difference. That ... special something ... that no one else has.

There are a ton of Instapunit-wannabes out there. Heck, this little blog has regular posts that link to other posts. So count me into the Instapundit-wannabes.

Maybe you want to be funny. But do we need another Frank J.? Or another Scott Ott? Or Iowahawk? Odds are, you won't be as funny. Count me in this group, too. As another wannabe.

There are lots of blogs that do news. Or humor. Or satire. Or vitriol. Or celebrity watching. Or ... well, you get the point. It's probably already being done. And much better.

So, why should you blog?

We're back to my answer: Because you want to.

And, to me, that's most important.

If you are as good as those others, you'll have to want to blog for it to show. If you're as good as the others, and you don't really want to blog ... it'll never come out.

If you're not as good as those others ... so what? If you're blogging because you want to, you're doing what you want ... and that's got to be satisfying.

So, why are you blogging? Or why are you about to start blogging?

Whatever your reasons are ... if "because I want to" isn't part of it, you won't be successful.

Wanting to does not guarantee success. But not wanting to guarantees failure.

Coming up in Part 2

Picking a platform.