Recommendation

This would be a good book to help you learn what blogging is, choose a blogging system, and get up and running on it.

a few links to blogs i like

• Charlie's Diary (Blosxom)
• Electrolite (Moveable Type)
• Hack the Planet (Manila)
• Punk Rock Girl (Live Journal)
• Tavie (Blogger)

Notes:

• These links were taken from "Essential Blogging"
  -- there are many more links there.
• Your interests are likely different,
  but these links do illustrate what a blog is.
• Note the blogrolls. So more blogs, if you wish.
• The blogging system is indicated in parentheses.

Contents

• What's a Blog, anyway?
• About the Reviewer
• How I Used this Book
• Who is this Book for?
• Which Blogging System is for You?
• Getting Up and Running
• The O'Reilly Page on the Book

What's a Blog, anyway?

When I started this process, I didn't know what a blog was at all.

Here's what I understand now. A blog is a means of communication. It's sort of like an on-line diary for all to see, but it can involve many people and can allow comments from readers and much more.

A blog consists of a web page(s) which contains posts, usually in reverse date order. It also may include:

• a title
• a subtitle
• a blogroll, i.e. a list of links to other blogs
• a link(s) to an associated mailing list(s)
• etc.

For an example of a really short blogroll, see the list entitled "a few links to blogs i like" to the left. Following any one of these links will lead you to a real live blog. (Note that these links came from the book.)

This book and the links it provides can help you to get a handle on what a blog is. Especially relevant is Chapter One including the many links to blogs there.

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About the Reviewer

I'm a long time webmaster, software developer, and training developer. And more specifically I'm a long time user of Perl (a language in which some blogging systems are written) and of various flavors of the Unix operating system.

On the other hand, I have little experience installing packages of any kind. And prior to getting involved with this book, I didn't know what blogging was at all.

Oh yeah, I'm a big supporter of O'Reilly and of open source.

How I Used this Book

I used this book and the links in it to assist me to

• learn what blogging is,
• choose a blogging system (I chose Blosxom), and
• download, install and get Blosxom running.

Who's this Book for?

Well, this book would be really valuable for someone who wanted to choose a blogging system and then get it up and running. You don't even have to know what a blog is. You can learn that from the book.

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Which Blogging System is for You?

I used Chapter One to pick a blogging system. I picked Blosxom because it was said to be free and imlemented in a small number of lines of easily extended Perl code. Then I read Chapter 9, "Minimalist Blogging with Blosxom" which confirmed my choice.

Since your background and concerns are different from mine, you will likely make a different choice. For example, if you want a system that's even easier to get up and running than Blosxom, then you might choose Blogger.

Chapter One of "Essential Blogging" contains sufficient information to choose which of the 9 blogging systems discussed there is for you. The book also contains a chapter (or two) on 4 of the systems discussed.

If you choose one of the four systems discussed later in the book, then I suggest you look at the chapter(s) concerning it to confirm your choice. If your choice holds up and you find the directions for getting it up and running are clear to you, then you may wish to go ahead with that system.

If you choose the Slash blogging system, there's an O'Reilly book on Slash entitled "Running Weblogs with Slash" that you may want to look at. (I haven't read that book and have no comment on it.) Otherwise, checkout the documentation on the web.

If none of the systems talked about (in Chapter One) suit you, you can always do a search on the web. You might try something as simple as
    +"blogging system"
I did this seach on Google and found a number of systems.

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Getting Up and Running

Getting Blosxom up and running turned out to be incredibly easy. I didn't run into a single problem.

When I unzipped the download, all that was in it was a single file which was a smallish Perl CGI. The whole process went smoothly and took about half an hour from starting the download to seeing my new blog in a browser window. It would have taken much less time but I was taking notes for this review (a lot more than I needed to) and doing some other things that are not necessary.

Although it wasn't my first choice, I also got up and running on Blogger just to see what was involved. I had several minor confusions, but was still up and running even more quickly than with Blosxom. Impressive.

The book contains excellent directions for getting Blosxom running. Blogger is even easier to get running. I read through the directions for getting started on Moveable Type and Radio Userland. Both seemed clear enough.

The O'Reilly Page on the Book

This book links to an O'Reilly page about the book. The page is worth looking at.

There is a search mechanism there that will search the book. I did 6 searches on the book and found the results useful. There's also a link to an interesting article on blogging by one of the authors. There are also many other worthwhile things on the page, especially if you haven't yet purchased the book.

© Copyright George Woolley 2003

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