iBlog with .mac works fine.

The latest reviews of iBlog were horribly scathing. I don't use .Mac anyway as my main site anyway.

Mike

I've used pMachine Pro. Works well.

Ironic that I post this and now there's a sticky about blogging software.

If I could only find a decent piece of software to blog with!

Mike

"It is with some sadness that I announce the official retirement of pMachine Pro."

I’m very new to blogging. I wouldn’t have started if I hadn’t found ecto. Look on VersionTracker.

ecto only works with blogging server APIs, none of which work with godaddy.

Mike

It's probably not the reply you wanted, but if you want to have a blog, you probably should go with a real ISP - one that actually gives you Apache accounts with Perl and PHP and all the other good stuff. Then you can install Wordpress or Movable Type or whatever you want and use Ecto.

I'm sure you can search these forums and find recommendations for web hosts. Personally, I use Server Logistics (serverlogistics.com). Reasonable prices, good service, and it's all hosted on Xserve G5s.

WordPress.

I use the web interface to post - but you may want to use MarsEdit.

I like nanoblogger, but it might not meet your needs.

Well, godaddy HAD these things before, then they removed them.

Then dreamhosting (I think is the name) just removed support which broke something big on March 29th.

I keep searching, but the problem is that ISPs don't tell you what they DON'T support.

For example, Kung-Tunes uploads what you're listening to up to your web site. There's a script I have that uses fopen() to grab XML from an external site (amazon) and shows the album cover on your site. Godaddy doesn't explicitly say "we don't support this" on their web site, as well as other sites. They broke the ability to use fopen with external sites. I have yet to find ONE site that tells you what they DON'T support. So even if I find a site that supports movabletype, it might not support something else. It's very hard to find the "perfect" ISP.

I'd host the damn thing myself, but Comcast doesn't allow web servers to run on your system.

Mike

You don't have to use .Mac - it just has good support for .Mac if you have it. You can post your blog anywhere.

FWIW, I don't really use any blogging software so can't really comment on the quality of the app itself.

I've found iBlog really quite good when I was using it - very easy to use indeed. I don't have .Mac so was just posting it up to my ISP webspace. Only trouble is extracting the CSS sheets to fiddle, but all is simple when you know how!

Well, I went with WordPress. It's very good, but still limited compared to MovableType. I find that server-based blogging is better than client-based. I'll try ecto again (was WordPress one of their supported APIs?).

Link in my sig.

Mike

do you know what dreamhost removed? i am with them and i am running movabletype on their servers without any problems.

they even have a one click install of :
WordPress Weblog (latest) - wordpress.org
phpBB Forum (v2.0.14) - phpbb.com
Advanced Poll (v2.03) - proxy2.de
osCommerce Store (v2.2m2) - oscommerce.com
MediaWiki Wiki (v1.4.0) - wikipedia.sourceforge.net
available in your control panel.

the fopen() thing, i am not sure about.

but if you want to you could try their 777 promo code for the 1 year of their cheapest hosting and get a year for $9.24.

no, i am not associated with dreamhost. no i am not giving you my referral code so i get money (eventually). i am just really happy with them. and plus, $9.24 to test out their hosting for a year (with a free .com domain) is not too shabby.

I have a blog on Blogger. I just use the web-based tools for making posts and insert my own images from my own web server.

Am I weird? How hard can it be? Don't most blogs allow you to post without having special software on your own personal computer?

They got rid of (thinks) some form of fopen() which broke some software that a lot of people were using. Sorry for being vague, I found it last night and have the link at home.

Yeah, I'd like to take their server for a test drive. I'll look into that later.

Mike

I use iJournal myself, but that requires a LiveJournal account, and this may not be your cup of tea.

dreamhost.com just killed fopen() Wednesday:

http://discussion.dreamhost.com/sho...sb=5&o=14&part=

Subject Re: Dreamhost's policy on remote file access [re: Gary]
Posted by Gary (DH New User )
Posted on 04/20/05 03:52 PM

Just minutes ago, the change was apparently finally implemented. All the external RSS feeds i was displaying died and my currency conversion, which uses an external XML file, quit working as well. This is totally unacceptable. If there is not some other way to grab the content of an external file, I'm afraid I'll have to change hosts.

ExpressionEngine is the only blogging software worth a nickle. It costs money but it's damn good. The "moblog" feature lets you setup sending through email (with password) or even sending pictures straight to the weblog page from your mobile phone.

Use MagpieRSS - fopen() is ABSOLUTELY a stupid way to do a feed.


Don't be a drama queen. You either don't know how to setup RSS, or something isn't setup right on your part:

HERE IS WHAT DREAMHOST SAID ABOUT RSS FEEDS***********************************


Nope, definitely not - the policy change is for that very specific function only, not for the generic act of "grabbing the content of a remote file and doing something with it". RSS, Atom, etc. tools are fine, policy-wise.

Basically, we're just trying to thwart a recent onslaught of security problems.

************************************************** ****************************************

I'm with ashtoash on this one. Grabbing URLs via fopen() was always one of the shadier PHP methods anyway, and I'm glad to see it being put out to pasture. There are other ways to get objects via HTTP if you need to, and they tend to be much more secure.

You're running a BSD machine already. Why not turn on apache, get yourself a static IP and do it yourself. then the only operation you'll have to complain about is yourself.

Comcast doesn't allow that. Believe me, I'd LOVE to do it myself.

Mike

ecto is pretty great.

^ ecto

Comcast offers static IPs, and you can do this. However I think it's a bad idea. First the upload won't be that great, and it interfers with your normal browsing/downloading, and second you make yourself reponsible for your new "hosting" server. I run about 40 dedicated servers now, and 2 datacenter cages. Hosting on your home machine is a bad idea, especially if your not a unix sys admin, and even if you are and think it's "cool" to run your own it's just a bad idea to expose your home system to "hosting"... Granted It might be easier for me to say this considering i wouldn't have to ever open my wallet....

It's also very easy to slow down your home connection or DOS your home ip off the net with a "slightly" faster connection.

You might have a look at MarsEdit from Ranchero. It's not free, but it's pretty nice. I use it to add entries to my WordPress blog. Setting up WP was a bit of a chore, but only because I was a total newbie when it came to setting up MySQL and other stuff on my site. Getting MarsEdit to work with WP was a problem at first, too, because the build of WP I'd downloaded lacked one, crucial file...which is always the case with these things.

I use MarsEdit (http://ranchero.com/marsedit/) and Conversant (http://www.free-conversant.com/).

jclarkv