Blogger's Forum - What blog website/template do you use?

I wondered what websites for blogs do you all use? I haven't decided yet, but am considering starting a blog.

I see a lot of blogspot.com blogs. What others are out there? Any that cater specifically to cyclist? What sites are you all using?

I'm on Blogspot simply for it's ease of use, and the fact that many of my friends use it. I doubt there are any out there geared toward the cyclist, but I know most of the cyclists I know who blog use blogspot, or started on it at least.

Quite a few are on wordpress.com (http://wordpress.com) a hosted system, (similar to blogger). If you want your blog on your own hosting, they have Wordpress.org (http://wordpress.org) where you can download the program.

knotty

for my bicycling blog, which is really geared to be a journal, narrative and rant outlet, I use blogspot.

The site that pays my hosting bills (and provides some beer money on top of that) runs on a custom Content Management Engine that I wrote myself. It contains the ability for multiple users to have blogs, as well as a front-page blog-style news feed, and separate searchable articles that don't show up on the front page but are organized by category.

My blog uses the WordPress blogging platform on a webhost plan that I pay for. The webhost also provides for something called Fantastico which is a service that allows you to install various programs such as WordPress onto your webhost plan.

I decided to go this route instead of Blogger or Blogspot because I wanted total control. Well, I had even more control when I had the blog on my own system at home. :)

i use wordpress.org

i was given a domain name and space on a virtual private server under the promise i would blog and take pics because someone figured it was the only way to keep up with me.

I use blogspot too.
Virtual beginner to both bikes and blogs, found blogspot easy to use.
Cycling - now that's another matter!!!:o

Edit June 2008 - have swapped over to wordpress

Blogspot as well.

Blogspot here also. It seems somewhat idiot proof.

I also use blogger, but I should warn that it's not totally idiot proof. For a long time my blog wasn't displaying properly for anyone using a firefox browser because I tried to get too clever with the template alterations. Fortunately the problem has now been resolved.

I also use blogger, but I should warn that it's not totally idiot proof. For a long time my blog wasn't displaying properly for anyone using a firefox browser because I tried to get too clever with the template alterations. Fortunately the problem has now been resolved.I guess I am a smart enough idiot to not play too many games. I will admit to having some problems once when I swapped templates. I found some of their optional templates displayed better than others. Took me several tries before I found one I liked and presented cleanly.

BTW - I like your blog. Nice job.

I use wordpress. It's great if you want full control of your site.

i use wordpress hosted by them, i used to host myself but fid it easier to utilise wp tag system

I wrote my own CMS in PHP. Not for most people, but if you've ever considered learning how to build a website, an online journal is the perfect project.

Blogspot for pure ease of use and it happened to be the first thing I found when I decided to try blogging.

Blogspot for me as well, it just dovetails in cleanly with a gmail/google identity, and if you were to want them, google analytics are easy to pop right in.

Not sure what would be specific for cyclists on any blogging set-up... maybe ride journal entries? I frankly can't think of anything that's all about bikes that requires specific content management. I'm not really cycling focused in terms of writing, so I don't know what to make of that.

I use blog.com.

Took a while to set it up the way I wanted, but no trouble since then.

http://jdub999.blog.com

My friend who started the blog for me used blogspot. He set it up, put in the first post, and gave me a username and pw. Kind of appropriate as he was my primary leadout guy when we raced together.

Blogspot sort of requires you to use Google stuff (gmail account to sign in for example). But they also offer you Analytics (traffic stats, absolutely fascinating - who, where, how often, how long, etc), AdSense (Google ads if you want), and some other stuff. It's a nice complete package.

A tip if you use blogspot - don't pick the black background. It's hard to read. However he did it because he felt it was the most blog like thing and the initial goal was to "be a blog". Most stereotypical thing with blogs is the black background.

Having said that, I've kept the black for now.

sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com

cdr

I use blogger. It's easy and I've had it for awhile and see no reason to switch.

www.cyclemama.blogspot.com

My friend who started the blog for me used blogspot. He set it up, put in the first post, and gave me a username and pw. Kind of appropriate as he was my primary leadout guy when we raced together.

Blogspot sort of requires you to use Google stuff (gmail account to sign in for example). But they also offer you Analytics (traffic stats, absolutely fascinating - who, where, how often, how long, etc), AdSense (Google ads if you want), and some other stuff. It's a nice complete package.

A tip if you use blogspot - don't pick the black background. It's hard to read. However he did it because he felt it was the most blog like thing and the initial goal was to "be a blog". Most stereotypical thing with blogs is the black background.

Having said that, I've kept the black for now.

sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.com

cdr

how does one get the analytics on Blogger?

This site was posted 5 months too soon for me, but the site i just released has a Blog option on it as part of your profile. This is mine....

http://www.bikewire.net/blogs.php?id=4

Wordpress. But it took me several tries before I found a template that I liked.

I use wordpress. I looked at blogspot but I liked the options on wordpress better. I think a lot of it is personal preference since they are all slightly different.

N.

http://badhuman.wordpress.com

Personally, I like wordpress. Most blogs that I've seen being hosted by wordpress are really neat and well organized. They may have very simple lay-outs but hey, they are very reader-friendly too.

_____________________________
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wordpress.org Awesome.

i don't have the time to tinker around so i just went with blogspot

I wondered what websites for blogs do you all use? I haven't decided yet, but am considering starting a blog.

I've got my own domain and can install my blogs using my website control panel, so the following may not apply if you go for the free blog hosting options.

I use WordPress on the main portion of my website Smackdab.us (http://smackdab.us/). My newer Bike! (http://bike.smackdab.us/) blog uses b2Evolution.

Wordpress is widely used, has lots of plugins and themes that can can be downloaded and used on your blog and is a nice one to use.

b2evolution works fine, has less addons available, but you can run multiple blogs off one installation.

I tried Drupal, and it worked okay, but the admin area was too confusing for my tastes.

Both of my blogs are pretty simple and uncomplicated looking. Skins and skins customization can make them fancier and more colorful, but I like mine simple.

I use wordpress on my own hosting plan. I settled on a free theme called Notepad. Just click the banner below to see it.

I use wordpress.org. I really like the extra control you get from hosting your own blog.
The tool support is amazing. I also built my own template which I thought was a very steep learning curve.

Yep, another vote for WordPress on my own hosted site. I use the Talian 3 column theme.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b44/zinrider/2007/Cycling/2007-7-14%20Triple%20ByPass/IMG_0504-1-1-2.jpg

My own website has been neglected foir quite a while, so I won't bother linking it here, but I chose a different solution to what most people choose.

WordPress was a package I examined closely, and it's very good software which enables a Blog to be put up rather quickly and easily. It's fairly powerful software too. But I wasn't all that enthralled with the 'back end' of it, and found that the administrative console of Joomla! provided more flexibility better ease of use and better website/content control. So I installed a Joomla! site, disabled most of the default installed features, and added dedicated plug-ins for features I wanted to have on the site and which the default install didn't adequately provide.

That's a bit more stuffing about in the initial setup, but the end result was a highly configurable website which could provide any feature I wanted, and which was extremely easy to manage.

I just went with a straight html and css site. Wordpress is neat but I didn't really need it and the disadvantage is that if you are hosting it yourself it takes a lot more bandwidth to load the pages. This isn't a problem with most hosting plans unless the blog gets wildly popular and hits digg or something.

I wrote an article about bicycling and at one point I took out all the tedious details that only bikers would be interested in, and just left in the interesting and entertaining stuff. I have thought about adding a blog page that does go into the details, but then ran into this forum which seems to cover them quite well. I have been checking out the sites in sigs though once in awhile though and did enjoy Zin's. Not the most artistic in the world, but pretty expressive, and a lot of detail loaded into wordpress.

//snip// I have been checking out the sites in sigs though once in awhile though and did enjoy Zin's. Not the most artistic in the world, but pretty expressive, and a lot of detail loaded into wordpress.

Glad you enjoyed my blog site. Not sure what "artistic" means as it relates here, so would appreciate any direction you are willing to share in that regard. I am always open to suggestions to improve things. :)

Shoot me a PM if you are willing to share your ideas to make my site more "artistic."

Another wordpress.org fan here. It requires more work than blogspot but it also means you have more control. You can also have your own URL.

Actually, if you have your own domain registered, you can have it on your blogspot blog site. There is an option to do this in the blog control panel. :)

I've just swapped from blogspot to wordpress. It's more tweakable! Just takes a bit of getting used to.

Or you can export your Blogspot Template and port it over to your own domain.

Or you can export your Blogspot Template and port it over to your own domain.


Oh dear! You are baffling me with science :o

I managed to import all my old posts to the new site, but the look of it is different.
I'm quite happy with it though! Nothing fancy - suits me fine!! :D

Happy with Blogger/Blogspot. Used them last year for a different blog, quite successfully, and not only do they hook up with all the Google extras quite well, they also synch nicely with Technorati, BlogPatrol, and other non-Google extras, too. (There are non-Google tools on the Web??? ;) ).

I use WordPress on www.ride-strong.com (http://www.ride-strong.com). WordPress is the way to go.

I have a install of XAMPP where I test out various programs on my computer. Been trying b2evolution 2.4.2, Expression Engine Core (free), and next will be MT 4.2

The newest b2evolution is pretty nice, they have made a lot of tweaks.

knotty

I'm using wordpress 2.1 with a heavily modified yellowjacket theme on my blog (http://tenerife-training.net/Tenerife-News-Cycling-Blog/).

The trouble when you start modding themes is that when you upgrade, you're basically stuffed...

I haven't tried any other blog platforms to compare those, but I can't complain about the functionality of wordpress + appropriate plugins.

I have tested most bloggsoftware that is availble, my favoured method is to use a homebuilt system, that I really can tweak after my needs. Though the bike advocacy blogg I just started is running on a system created by the free newspaper Metro (I know they gone Internationall, but they started in this town), the system isn't great though, but that hosting offers some other stuff (automatic pings, payment after 5000 hits, the posibility to be featured in the paper (wouln't happend though)).

I doubt you get anythings of the Swedish, but located at http://www.metrobloggen.se/cykla

I use Wordpress which meets my requirements perfectly. I've got plenty of control over layout, and writing is as easy as my head lets it be.

Check it out: http://fatmanonabike.wordpress.com It's bloomin' marvellous, even if I do say so myself.

I run textpattern on my own domain

I too would recommend using Wordpress, and I also have my own domain.

I use blogger.com, also known as blogspot. Easy to use and understand dashboard, they update and improve the site regulary. Great gadget options. Efficient tools to make blogging easier, especially when you have 6 blogs you post to as I do.

i use blogspot bcoz for me it very easy to understand... i tried wordpress but for some reason i find it too much hehehe for the template i just used the simplest one with black background.

I use the Mesozoic theme for Wordpress on my blog: http://aarondavidson.com/blog/

I've changed my theme to the Irresistible Theme from Woo Themes. It's free.