First, I'll admit I got a bit ahead of myself in Part I since by the time I selected an ISP I'd already downloaded and setup dasBlog before making the commitment to hosting my own blog. Anyway...
Since my day job involves building an ASP.NET designer using a blog engine running on something other than ASP.NET wasn't really an option. However, as far as blog engines go I've either used or I'm currently using the following blog software:
- WordPress
- Google's Blogger
- .Text by Scott Watermasysk whose long since moved on to Community Server which I have not tried though it looks very nice
- dasBlog - the blog engine you're reading from now unless of course you're using a feed reader.
For my personal blog dasBlog was particularly appealing for the following reasons:
- Runs on ASP.NET
- The feature set
- It's Open Source
- Actively being developed
- Widely used as I've run into it on lots of blogs though I have no idea of the actual size of the community
- Does not require a SQL server (a $10/month cost savings on DiscountSP.NET)
- Easy FTP content backup
- Easy to understand
- Easy XCOPY deployment
- Allows for total flexibility WRT to skinning/theming
- Supports mobile devices
- Supports all of the standard blogging things like trackbacks, pingbacks etc.
- Supports Google Sitemaps
- Supports development of custom plugins
- Built-in FeedBurner support
- And lot's more...
I believe that about sums it up. Next, I'll talk about getting dasBlog downloaded, installed and running.
Reference: Part I
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Tags: Blogging