3 thoughts on “Blogspot Woes

  1. I’m seriously considering doing the same thing, myself, just because blogspot is so unreliable. But, free is so hard to beat. I’m just cheap, I guess.
    If you’ve got any advise on striking out on your own blog-wise, it would be gladly received.

  2. What I do is run my own server. I get relatively little traffic, so I get by just fine with a Linux box connected to the internet via a standard cable modem.

    It’s not super easy to get started, but I was fortunate enough to have a friend who knows Linux well who could get me started. You could use Windows too, but I recommend not using Microsoft’s IIS, as it is far less secure than Apache, which is available on all platforms. I would definitely recommend using a dedicated box either way though. You don’t want to open up your main computer to internet traffic for security reasons.

    I use Movable Type, which has a free version available. The current free version is considerably limited compared to the older 2.x versions. If you were to look into it, I suggest digging around on the web to find version 2.661 if you can.

    Because I have a dynamic IP address, I use DynDNS to handle my URL. My computer updates the service whenever my IP changes so that traffic is routed to the right place. DynDNS is a free service.

    That method costs you nothing if you already have a permanent, always-on connection to the web and don’t get high volumes of traffic (I’m capped at 256 KB Upload). Another route to take would be to sign up with a service provider that will give you a website for less than $10/month. If I ever end up getting more traffic than my cable modem can handle, I will switch to that route.

    If you decide to try that out, make sure your internet provider (whether it’s cable or DSL) doesn’t block port 80, as a lot of them do.

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