Maintain a Good Weblog

Many people want a way to express themselves on the internet. While some people are concerned about "Public" things like Myspace, a blog is a great way to express, communicate, and idealize your privacy. (This article is for people who have a semi-advanced knowledge of computers/the internet.)


Consider using one of the many free blog hosting services such as livejournal.com, deadjournal.com, or xanga.com.
Install a blog on a web server if you are more technically-savvy. This is a little bit more difficult than the "Remotely Hosted" Option, but gives you much more functionality. If you want to do this, follow these steps:
Find a weblog software that works for you. Find one that meets your requirements: Do you have PHP? Perl? Mysql? PostgreSQL? None of these? If you answered "None of these", You might wanna turn around.
Make sure you have the space. Is your web-server limiting bandwidth or space? Are you running a home server that doesn't have restrictions? Is there a database size restriction? If so, you might wanna think again about hosting your own.
Consider starting with a Perl-based weblog system. They generally do not require anything other that a writable folder, let alone an SQL database.

Once you have some experience, you might be able to step up to advanced PHP/SQL based blogging system such as Wordpress or PHPBBlog (A phpbb extension)
If you have limited resources (SQL servers, Bandwidth, Space, ect) You might want to stick with the "Remotely Hosted" options.

If you're running a home server, and you are not sure about what you are doing, you may be open to hacking attempts. For example, if you keep all of your website's files on the root of your C drive anyone has access to your whole computer.
Watch out for spammers. Some blog systems are vulnerable to certain spam bots which can post advertisements within your comment box. Try to add a verification image to the comment box so as to reduce the amount of spam.