First Steps - Starting a Blog (Blogger)

So where does a quest for Web 2.0 conformity begin? With a blog of course.

From the outset, one of the main objectives I have had in terms of an online presence has been to create and continue a blog of some description. All of these ideas running around in my head needed an outlet as my friends, family, co-workers etc. were getting sick of hearing me say, 'I saw the coolest thing on the net today...'. I had always wanted to have my own area on the net for ideas and thoughts, a simple idea to begin with, but as always execution was a totally different matter.

I started out, as I almost always to, with good old Google. A simple search on how to start a blog threw back a rather large list of options and suggestions. The first step it seemed, was to decide on how the blog would be hosted. Having a bit of past experience setting up and running a webserver, I figured I would give DIY hosting a shot. With this in mind I spent sometime looking into blogging software used by the more popular blogs I already frequented. After also checking out the list at OpenSourceCMS I decided to try out a couple on a spare machine at home; WordPress and MovableType.

MovableType, a product of the Six Apart group, sounded very promising and feature packed, however due to it's more professional (read 'money spending') target audience, and the limitations placed on the personal version I became a little turned off and didn't spend a whole lot of time with it. Instead I decided to throw my end in with WordPress. Initially I thought that all of my prayers had been answered. WordPress had provided me with an effective tool for blogging, and it worked seamlessly on the Fedora Core setup I had running. I quickly had a couple of test posts up and begun playing around with the templates and other backend settings. After spending a small chunk of my weekend work on it I had ended up with a pretty nice looking blog, and a head full of dreams. Then came Monday.

I got to work early on the Monday so that I could see how the new blog ran externally and spent the next 15 minutes getting royally 404'd. Out of desperation I retreated to Whirlpool and had a quick trawl through the forums. Pretty soon I found what I was dreading; my ISP was blocking port 80. DAMN BUTTMONKEYS!!!

After trying a few alternatives; port-forwarding, web-hops etc, I eventually made the decision to use an online blogging service. So, back to the drawing board. After a bit more investigation I decided to give Blogger a look in. After what I have to say is a pretty painless signup and introduction, the Smoiled blog was live. Having come from an Internet publishing background (in other terms I know how to make web-sites, well or not is another matter), I spent a little bit of time tweaking and personalising the look and feel. After a while though I decided that I could spend for too long doing this, missing the point entirely, and instead opted to get stuck into the posting. From my limited time using Blogger's template system I was pretty impressed and I promised myself that as the journey progressed I would make some more changes.

So there I was, a nice clean, simple to use blog awaiting the tapping of my fingers. I have to admit that after doing the behind the scenes stuff, I thought that getting down and writing some content would be a breeze. Alas, not all is as it seems. Having never really put myself out there online before I felt a little exposed and got very critical of my writing. I totally blew the whole thing out of proportion and spent far too long working on what turned out to be a fairly straight-forward post. After sweating over the keyboard for a couple of hours, I had come up with something I was relatively content with and hit the publish button. And there it was, a shining light in the blackness of the Smoiled-verse, a beacon for the future.

I would love to run around now announcing myself as 'blogger', but to be honest I am still struggling with the whole thing. Although this post has been a little easier to write, it has still taken what seems like forever and it will still be hard to push the publish button. But I am going to persist and hopefully things will start to flow easier soon. In the meantime I will continue to keep my right hand poised over the backspace button.

Categories: Web2.0, Starting, Blogging, Blogger, Hosting, ISP