your own in-house blog server.

[@HeatherSmithAU]

Can some one give me some tips/steps about how I would create my own in-house blog server?

I realise that there are services like Blogger, TypePad, or WordPress but I would like to understand if I should take the leap and just do it in-house.

I use adobe contribute 4.0, which has blog authoring capability.

[ActiveCounselling]

Hi Heather,

I am sure that many people will be able to fill you in on the technical aspects. My points are aimed more at the mechanics.

When you say in-house do you mean hosting your own server on your own premises? If so you need to carefully consider the reliability of your internet connection, backups, redundant hardware etc in order to ensure your blog is available as long as possible. It is for this reason that I have outsourced my hosting but I manage the content.

I run a standard website and not a blog but the concepts are the same. You have a very low perceived quality of service if your site is not available several times a month due to various issues such as hardware failure, ADSL link going down etc.. With ADSL in our area being so poor I could not dream of hosting something onsite.

It also means you need to be more competent in terms of security and general internet technology. So you need to work out if you have an interest in this area.

The big benefit is obviously that you have full control over your blog and how it is presented to the world.

My suggestion would be to find a reliable hosting service (in Australia) and then manage the content yourself.

Hope that helps somewhat,

Regards,

David

[Devan]

Hi Heather,

My recommendation would be to use a virtual hosting service such as SliceHost (Slicehost - VPS Hosting). Basically, it means that you can buy a 'virtual' server that is completely under your control without having to bother about purchasing hardware, setting up high speed lines into your premises etc.

You get full admin level access to your 'slice' and can install anything you like on it, whether it be WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or any other software that you want.

Granted, you need a little bit of technical expertise to do this, so it is not for the faint hearted - but then again, neither is setting up your own internal web server.

We have been using SliceHost for about a year now, and have had absolutely no trouble with them, which can't be said for our own internal servers!

Let me know if you need more details.

Cheers,
Devan

[theturnaroundartist]

Hi Heather,

The first thing to ask - who is the intended audience?
* Internal Only (i.e. you and your team)
* External People (everyone!)

Once those questions are answered, you can then determine which method of hosting you want to employ:
* Internal (run your own server - high risk, high cost - not worth it)
* External (for example http://blog.theturnaroundartist.com)

I recommend you host it externally - that way you can easily get it up and running and be adding content in no time!

As for a VPS - it's overkill in this instance I would say, unless you are going to be running multiple sites that will help bring the cost down.

Cheers,

Geoffrey.

[ahortin]

Hi Heather,

The previous posts have all talked about the 'physical' location of the server hosting your site/blog, all with good points. I'm going to answer from a different perspective...

I'm wondering if you're talking about whether you should use a blog 'hosting' service such as the ones you mentioned (TypePad, WordPress) or whether you should host the blog yourself (eg. install blogging software such as WordPress, on your own hosting server)

Personally, I'd suggest hosting your blog yourself, using software such as Wordpress. WordPress is very easy to install and there are hundreds of free (and/or very cheap) templates available to customise the look. You can either use these templates as is, or depending on your technical knowledge, customise them to suit your existing site look 'n feel.

Hosting the blog yourself also allows for greater customisation in the way your blog looks, including the use of a huge amount of 'plugins' that are currently available.

Regards,
Anthony

[@HeatherSmithAU]

Thank-you all so much for your detailed responses. I really appreciate the time you have taken to respond.

I will try and answer your questions :-

My internet connection is bigpond (yawn I know very boring & probably more expensive than others out there – but hopefully reliable!?!)
Yes I believe I am on ADSL.
Yes I wanted the blog for external users.

And here is a bit more background :-
I was using google blogger for about a year. It was a great place to learn about blogging, and I tried out many of their features. I was advised to move it to me own domain name, to increase my domain names ranking. So I moved it www.ANISEConsulting.com but this resulted in it being stripped of all the additional features that google blogger had to offer. I even lost the nice sign up to this newsletter box. I realise that you can still do it by RSS feed – but I suspect a lot of people don’t know how to use RSS feed. The only thing I did not like about google blogger was the time it took to upload a photo.

As I stated in my first post I have paid for a piece of software called Adobe Contribute CS3 4.1. This has blog authoring capabilities.

I think I will go back and read the further about what Adobe Contribute CS3 4.1 can do for me in terms of blogs.
Thank-you again.

[MissieK]

I have WordPress installed on my own domain name - it came free with my hosting & it's working well. There are a lot of great features you can add - most I haven't bothered with...

I don't know anything about Adobe Contribute, sorry, can't help you there.

Melissa

[@HeatherSmithAU]

what is your blog address MissieK?

[BrightBiz]

Heather,

If you would like more control over your blog I would VERY highly recommend wordpress. It would be fairly simple to install wordpress on your current blog domain and then import all your blogger posts over.

It will take a bit of playing around with and tweaking but will be worth it in the end, because you have full control over the domain and can change themes etc very easily and are not at risk of blogger controlling your blog or shutting it down.

And, yes you can use adobe contribute to post to your blog, although wordpress is so easy you could also just log straight in and post with ease too

Basically the steps from here are to decide what software you would like to use to blog with... (again wordpress is great, very easy adaptable, seo friendly too) upload wordpress to your current hosting, install... point it towards your current blog domain name and import all your blogger information and posts across.

You could easily add a sign up form for your newsletter too in the sidebar.

Hope that helps

[BrightBiz]

Just reading back my post, it may sound a little confusing.....

I hope it makes some sense but if you want a hand with it just give me a yell I'd be happy to help shed further light on it or even help you do the install if you want too ( no self promotion here, it would absolutely just be a favour for you if you need a hand)