Livin' the life...

I've been hearing questions about blogging ever-so-often therefore in this post I just give a quick overview into your options to start blogging toDay!

Once you've decided you want to blog, the next question is - are you about free stuff or do you wish to pay? Now this may seem an easy decision - who'd want to pay if you can do it for free?! - but just remember that when you pay, (1) at least there's _some_ guarantee that tomorrow when you wake up your stuff is still there (yea I know, far fetched but still realistic!) and (2) you have the option of easily doing backups (of the SQL database or XML files)!

Now if you've decided on the free route, for a nice blogging tool that only requires you to add content, I suggest using any of the following sites:
- Blogger.com (Google-owned)
- WordPress.com

Setting up an account with these sites is relatively simple and you'll be on your way in no time! Another benefit with those sites is that if you wish, you can register a domain name and then have the domain name point to your free blog as my pal Ramal has done here.

On the other hand, if freeness isn't for you and you've decided to pay for your site, you have the following options:
Under Linux hosting:
- Wordpress (yes, they have a downloadable file as well..)

Under Windows hosting:
- DasBlog (what I use, for now...)
- SubText
- BlogEngine.NET (directly from MS I think)

Please note though that all these software are FREE, you only need to pay for the domain name and hosting then simply install setup one of these software within your hosted space. All of them come with setup instructions as well, so no need to panic!

Before I head off though, I'd like to bring something to your attention.. it's a nice little tool that I think is PERFECT for people who are not into heavy blogging but just like to post links, small articles, random photos etc. It's called tumblr and as they state when defining it, "To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks." (Ref) As usual, you can find more info on tumblr at it's official website or at Wikipedia.

Enjoy!!!