Interested in starting my own blog -

[Noah]

But i'm not the best with HTML and website development, although i am very knowledgable with computers. I'm curious, What did Steve Pavlina use to make his site with? I'm looking for a layout similar to his,one that is not all about being flashy, one that is easy to navigate. I want a mostly text-based web-site also, just like how his is. I have tried using Dreamweaver 8, Which is completely out of my league at the level that i am at. I took a class in high school using frontpage, but i don't think i learned a single thing in that class. If anyone could answer my question, it would be awesome.
Thanks alot,
Noah.

[fdjaudinesjr]

If you want to start blogging quickly try these sites:

Blogger: Create your Blog Now -- FREE <- I believe they have added adsense already
LiveJournal.com - Start a Free Blog / Journal Today
WordPress.com » Get a Free Blog Here

But if you want to really control your site you have to learn HTML at the very least then move on to scripting (Javascript, PHP, CSS, etc.).

Use this highly-rated and FREE software tool for your personal blog:

Blog Tool and Weblog Platform

[Noah]

Happen to know of any websites that teach the basics to HTML using simple HTML programs? Such as frontpage, Dreamweaver, ect ect?

[fdjaudinesjr]

If you know nothing about HTML, this is where you start

Google is your friend... try searching other HTML tutorials from there.

Goodluck! :-)

[Kristoffer]

I started with a hosted blog at wordpress.com because I was like you afraid that the programming would be too much work.

Soon I realised that I wanted to host it myself because it gave so much more freedom. It is really not that more complicated to manage your blog that way if you use a platform like wordpress.

Most functions can be modified via control panels, and if you want to you can always go inside and change the code yourself. That is the real (and very important) difference between a hosted blog and by hosting yourself.

If you are planning on having ads or want to use your own theme (design) for the blog hosting yourself is a must.

If you chose a hosting company that offers auto install for your platform it is a lot faster to get started. ( I am using BLUEHOST.COM )

[Lucas]

I agree with the idea of starting with a wordpress hosted account, then moving it to a wordpress account on your own server once you get comfortable. I dove right into Wordpress on my own domain, and it really isnt too difficult.

[jthayes]

Go with wordpress, it's very configurable and has lots of plugins. It's a powerful engine. I started my first blog a year or two ago on Blogger. It was good to get me into blogging, but it just doesn't compare to something like wordpress.

If you don't want to have your own server then use one of the free wordpress hostings.

I've got mine hosted hosted on a proper server but you can start with a free one. You can start with a basic template and start to configure and customise as and when you are ready.

Good luck.

[Milo Riano]

Yup, I agree starting a wordpress account, it is the closest and easiest way for you to start...

[and]

Steve designed his own wordpress theme, and I think he borrowed heavily from others. But you cand find a theme you want for wordpress here:

Theme viewer

[John Wesley]

Free blogs on Blogger or Wordpress.com are fine, but if you are serious about it at all and plan on putting in a lot of effort, you should definitely buy your own domain name and hosting.

It's pretty cheap, Wordpress is great and free, and you own your site. If you make a blog hosted through Blogger, they technically own your site and your options are very limited. I think people also tend to respect independently hosted blogs more because it shows a certain level of commitment and professionalism.

[Hugh Hollowell]

I have to agree. Wordpress is the de facto standard for large portions of the blogging community, it is very easy to change your look with the themes, and after instalation on your own server, requires very little in the way of technical knowledge to run.

I have 4 blogs that run on it, and think it is the best! Good luck blogging.

[EZJ]

I am intensely interested in getting some websites up I have wanted to do.

My first parlay was with a host called Online web site builder, website software, homepage creator, personal ecommerce - CityMaker.

I did like a lot of the stuff there, as it had an online WYSIWYG editor, which is GREAT, because I know nothing of coding, and a lot of the webpages were pre-built like the shopping cart, newsletter, so on, so on.

I did a community site for my local community, and generated a lot of buzz.

Problem was, I kept running into problems functionality wise on Citymaker.

ALL I WANT, to cut to the chase, is something that is as simple and easy to use as Microsoft Word, when it comes to moving and inserting images on a page.

The main thing, is I need all of my articles to be bloggable, and my websites WILL BE for profit.

Wordpress SEEMS like the best option, but I do not understand how to use it OFFLINE.

I started an online wordpress (yourname.wordpress.com) blog today, just to get it going and built, but I cannot insert Google Adsense, and I don't seem to have the functionality I want to move images around the page and such.

Does this rambling make sense? Can anyone make some suggestions?

[Hugh Hollowell]

Tons of useful info at wordpress.org and codex.wordpress.org. It is really simple, just get a good host (many do 1 click installs, I use Go-Daddy.com, which you can set up in about 5 minutes), make sure you understand the proceedure, then get your feet wet. The wordpress codex covers almost every imaginable problem.

[da1prophet]

Originally Posted by Noah

But i'm not the best with HTML and website development, although i am very knowledgable with computers. I'm curious, What did Steve Pavlina use to make his site with? I'm looking for a layout similar to his,one that is not all about being flashy, one that is easy to navigate. I want a mostly text-based web-site also, just like how his is. I have tried using Dreamweaver 8, Which is completely out of my league at the level that i am at. I took a class in high school using frontpage, but i don't think i learned a single thing in that class. If anyone could answer my question, it would be awesome.
Thanks alot,
Noah.

I've always hated HTML coding, but have learned enough over the years that I'm fairly conversant in it. It's a good skill to have...

I agree with the poster that if you want to do a serious blog you should forget about the free options. I had several blogs hosted on TypePad, which is a service I was generally pretty happy with. You can do things like set your domain name to redirect to your Typepad blog and it looks pretty seamless to the end user. For example, if your Typepad blog address is:

typepad.com/mysite

You can set a domain name to redirect to that, like mysite.com and your visitor will only see the 'mysite.com' part.

That's one solution, but I'm in the process of moving my blogs over to WordPress hosted by my ISP, Dreamhost. It's just a better option IMO--there are plenty of themes out there to get it to look the way you want and if you have some HTML skills you can edit the themes' CSS to personalize it even more.