Building my blog Part II: Selecting blog software

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.

• 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