William Noyes Technology Services

Most everyone has heard of blogging, but many readers have no idea how to start. In this article I hope to give the reader enough information to make a start.

Why Blog? There are many reasons to blog. Maybe you’re looking for a way to voice your opinion, or share knowledge with others. Maybe you’re looking for a way to vent about things that irritate you. Maybe you don’t want to be bothered writing a new html file every time you have something new to say (or something old to say!)

www.noyes-tech.com Serves several purposes for me. First, it is a form of advertising for my consulting business. Second, it is a way for me to share information I have learned with others, sort of giving back to the community. Third, it forces me to continue learning, I’ll give myself assignments like ‘write a blog about topic X,’ which forces me to gather up some research, put together a compelling (hopefully) article, and post it. Finally, it gives me a place to play with various web technologies that I couldn’t or wouldn’t on my employer’s or clients’ websites. For me a blogging software works as a content management system, I can focus on what I want to say, and the software makes sure all the pages look the same.

Where to Blog? The first thing to decide is whether to use a blog hosting service, or host the blog software on you own site. If you already have a site, then it probably makes sense to use it. If not, then the hosting services could be a better option.

Software. I you decide to use your own site, you’ll need to select a software package. There are several sites that review and compare the major software packages. I recommend that you do a little homework and investigate your options. Everyone is a little different, and has different needs and preferences. A Google search lead me to Owen Winkler’s blog, http://asymptomatic.net/blogbreakdown.htm where I found a great table listing several packages and their features. I finally settled on WordPress based upon the feature sets listed on the chart and several positive reviews at other sites. You can install WordPress on your own server, or they will host it at www.wordpress.org If you decide to host it yourself, follow their very good install documentation, the install process was much simpler than I expected.

Content. Once you have the software installed, you can customize the appearance of the site, and begin writing your content. While quality is more important than quality, it is important that you post regularly to encourage regular readers to visit frequently (OK, that pointer is mostly for myself!)

Enjoy,

Bill