[macintologist]

I've decided I finally want to start a blog of my own. I've got a .Mac account and I've tried iBlog but it doesn't work. Whenever I try to upload my blog it gives me an error and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that I'm behind an http proxy and perhaps iBlog doesn't detect my system preferences regarding that.

I want to steer away from Livejournal or Xanga, the reason being that if a year from now I decide to buy a domain and some webspace, I won't be able to transfer any of my old blogging and it will be stuck on some crappy free site. (I've seen lots of xangas and they look horrible)

I want my blog to look nice, like the popular political blogs you see on the net.

What do you recommend I do? Is there something alternative to iBlog that functions with my .Mac webspace? If I use that I would just buy a cheap domain and use domain forwarding with webmasking.

Maybe there's a good free blogging site you recommend (and then I use domain forwarding w/ masking on that thing)

Any help and advice will be appreciated!

[PurpleGiant]

You will be quite limited in your options due to the fact that .Mac has no PHP or other scripting abilities. Ideally, your best option would be to purchase a domain + hosting (real hosting, not .Mac) and you could install any number of free blog programs, and customise the look to appear however you wanted.

[ManOfSteal]

RapidWeaver v3.0.3

[sugar_coated]

Try something more creative.

[macintologist]

Hey Gorickey, do you know of any sites that use that software? Do you use it? Have any examples of real-world usage?

[ManOfSteal]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Hey Gorickey, do you know of any sites that use that software? Do you use it? Have any examples of real-world usage?

I'm sure that the Realmac page is done with RapidWeaver, and I know that PodShop was done by RW. I do have the program and have used it myself quite a few times in the past...

[macintologist]

Originally posted by ManOfSteal:
I'm sure that the Realmac page is done with RapidWeaver

Heh, I have my doubts, but maybe.

If I can see a blog being made using this software I will seriously consider buying it (and also as long as the upload works right)

[ManOfSteal]

Originally posted by macintologist:
If I can see a blog being made using this software I will seriously consider buying it (and also as long as the upload works right)

The integration/upload with .Mac is seamless and flawless in my experience.

[macintologist]

Imma try it. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks.

[mitchell_pgh]

In ManOfSteal We Trust�

[Sherwin]

Buy a guitar and learn to play that instead. The World needs more guitarists, not more bloggers.

[dreilly1]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Buy a guitar and learn to play that instead. The World needs more guitarists, not more bloggers.

Guitarists are a dime a dozen. The world needs more drummers.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Guitarists are a dime a dozen. The world needs more drummers.

NO! Not more of those people. They invented those little black boxes for a reason, you know.

[Kilbey]

Originally posted by Sherwin:
Buy a guitar and learn to play that instead. The World needs more guitarists, not more bloggers.

Originally posted by dreilly1:
Guitarists are a dime a dozen. The world needs more drummers.

NO! You ever met a normal drummer? I know. I used to play drums.

[Randman]

iBlog works well and also has seemless interaction with .Mac.

[macintologist]

Hey Gorickey, thanks a lot man, Rapid Weaver works great and recognizes the proxies in my system prefs, therefore .Mac integration is perfect. Thanks for sharing the wealth (of knowledge). Imma buy that app now and start ma' blogging.

[Athens]

Originally posted by macintologist:
I've decided I finally want to start a blog of my own. I've got a .Mac account and I've tried iBlog but it doesn't work. Whenever I try to upload my blog it gives me an error and I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that I'm behind an http proxy and perhaps iBlog doesn't detect my system preferences regarding that.

I want to steer away from Livejournal or Xanga, the reason being that if a year from now I decide to buy a domain and some webspace, I won't be able to transfer any of my old blogging and it will be stuck on some crappy free site. (I've seen lots of xangas and they look horrible)

I want my blog to look nice, like the popular political blogs you see on the net.

What do you recommend I do? Is there something alternative to iBlog that functions with my .Mac webspace? If I use that I would just buy a cheap domain and use domain forwarding with webmasking.

Maybe there's a good free blogging site you recommend (and then I use domain forwarding w/ masking on that thing)

Any help and advice will be appreciated!

I can host your blog for free, and you can use a redirect page on your .mac account to send ppl to the blog. PM me for details

[Cody Dawg]

SixApart.com

[typoon]

Originally posted by ManOfSteal:
RapidWeaver v3.0.3

I'll second that. If anyone wants check out my RapidWeaver site. http://www.troop86tenafly.org. One note. The images in the photo galllery are not lined up. It's a bug in RapidWeaver 3.0.3 and is supposed to be fixed in 3.1 I'm just too busy to use a different photogallery at the moment

[android8]

Forget RapidWeaver...it doesn't have a "comments-feature". If I were you I'd get myself a domain and find a place with free hosting (php+Mysql enabled) and then dl WordPress which is free, easy to install and comes with a nice template (which can easily be modified)....

[typoon]

Originally posted by android8:
Forget RapidWeaver...it doesn't have a "comments-feature". If I were you I'd get myself a domain and find a place with free hosting (php+Mysql enabled) and then dl WordPress which is free, easy to install and comes with a nice template (which can easily be modified)....

From what I understand from the Developers for RapidWeaver it should have that feature in 3.1

[mdc]

there is always blogger; which you can set it up to use your own hosting but blogger's backend for all the blogging stuff.

my blog used to be on blogger, and it worked well. there is even a blogthis! url which you can click to add a post, and thus pretty much never have to log into blogger.com's page

[android8]

Originally posted by typoon:
From what I understand from the Developers for RapidWeaver it should have that feature in 3.1

Excellent...looking forward to vers. 3.1 then...

[macintologist]

dp

[macintologist]

Hmm, thanks for you input guys. I'm not really sure I'm looking for a comments section on my website. If I post crap which is untrue, I don't want a vehicle to exist for factual accountability from the outside

Athens, thanks a lot for the offer dude. I appreciate it.

When my blog is up and running regularly I will bump the thread with the url for my fellow MacNNers to check out.

[KeyLimePi]

Originally posted by android8:
Forget RapidWeaver...it doesn't have a "comments-feature". If I were you I'd get myself a domain and find a place with free hosting (php+Mysql enabled) and then dl WordPress which is free, easy to install and comes with a nice template (which can easily be modified)....

I was looking to add a blog into my existing site. Can WordPress help with this? I just want the blog to be a section of the main page without becoming the main page. I've got little PHP experience, but I've gotten a few blogs to run on my site (mysql0. Trouble is all the feature-rich freebies are more like site onto themselves.

[typoon]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Hmm, thanks for you input guys. I'm not really sure I'm looking for a comments section on my website. If I post crap which is untrue, I don't want a vehicle to exist for factual accountability from the outside

Athens, thanks a lot for the offer dude. I appreciate it.

When my blog is up and running regularly I will bump the thread with the url for my fellow MacNNers to check out.

If you are not looking for a comments section to the blig postings the best thing I've found so far for blos postings is RapidWeaver. There are some quirks with it that are supposed to be worked out in the next version. ONe of the main ones is having to export the entire site again when you update your blog. That will/should be fixed in the next version 3.1 according to the developer.

[spiky_dog]

Originally posted by KeyLimePi:
I was looking to add a blog into my existing site. Can WordPress help with this? I just want the blog to be a section of the main page without becoming the main page. I've got little PHP experience, but I've gotten a few blogs to run on my site (mysql0. Trouble is all the feature-rich freebies are more like site onto themselves.

if you use an iframe anything is possible.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by mdc:
there is always blogger; which you can set it up to use your own hosting but blogger's backend for all the blogging stuff.

'Nuff said.

[macintologist]

Ok, I started my blog, with some pictures. Rapid Weaver is soooo nice. But I feel it's a big limited.

http://homepage.mac.com/lorna/The%20Book%20of%20Xavier/

I want to be able to put in quote boxes in my blogging, kinda like on LGF and Dailykos (and all other political blogs).

I figured out that I could do any tex formatting I wanted using the standard OSX formatting pallete.

But I couldn't see anything pertaining to quote boxes or indentation paragraphs of any sort.

------

Another problem I found with Rapid Weaver is that every time I go back to preview my Photo page, it has to keep on generating the thumbnails for all the pics, and on my 867Mhz 12" PB, it takes some time and is annoying. Anybody know a workaround?

Thanks a lot guys. God bless MacNN

[typoon]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Ok, I started my blog, with some pictures. Rapid Weaver is soooo nice. But I feel it's a big limited.

http://homepage.mac.com/lorna/The%20Book%20of%20Xavier/

I want to be able to put in quote boxes in my blogging, kinda like on LGF and Dailykos (and all other political blogs).

I figured out that I could do any tex formatting I wanted using the standard OSX formatting pallete.

But I couldn't see anything pertaining to quote boxes or indentation paragraphs of any sort.

------

Another problem I found with Rapid Weaver is that every time I go back to preview my Photo page, it has to keep on generating the thumbnails for all the pics, and on my 867Mhz 12" PB, it takes some time and is annoying. Anybody know a workaround?

Thanks a lot guys. God bless MacNN

Unfortunately not. I believe they are fixing that too in the Next version 3.1 Maybe you can signup as a beta tester for it. I'm signed up so when I'm able to DL my copy I'll let you know. It's annoying about the photo album having to do that in preview mode.

If you want you can contact Daniel, one of the developers here

[macintologist]

Ok, one last bump.

Here is my blog. http://homepage.mac.com/lorna/xavier/

Look ok? How's the color scheme?

[Oisín]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Look ok? How's the color scheme?

It's very... green!

A bit too green, perhaps *rubs retinas*

Also, I'd say you need something to separate the entries - as it is now, it sort of looks like just one long entry.

[Sherwin]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Ok, one last bump.

Here is my blog. http://homepage.mac.com/lorna/xavier/

Look ok? How's the color scheme?

Yeah, looks OK from here. I wouldn't have gone for the green personally as the red/green colour-blind folks would have problems with it, but there ya go.

[effgee]

Originally posted by macintologist:
Ok, one last bump.

Here is my blog. http://homepage.mac.com/lorna/xavier/

Look ok? How's the color scheme?

Assuming you like the green (I have no problem with it but it is quite "vibrant" as Ois�n noted above ), I'd suggest something like this to give the design and the textual contents a bit more room to breathe ...

• 

click the img for a full size version & keep in mind this is a 10min. "before-dinner" whip-up. Speaking of which - I'm hungry. Gotta. Have. Dinner. Now.