Richard.H's Blog » Blogging http://blog.richardhong.com Forrest gump runs, and I blog Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:49:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 How to set up your own blog http://blog.richardhong.com/2007/08/05/how-to-set-up-your-own-blog.html http://blog.richardhong.com/2007/08/05/how-to-set-up-your-own-blog.html#comments Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:22:38 +0000 Richard.H http://www.richardhong.com/2007/08/05/how-to-set-up-your-own-blog.html

Recently I have been helping several friends setting up their blogs. Most of them are using MSN space, which I don’t really like for two reasons: 1) too many restrictions on customising your own template, 2) most people like to mess up with the HTML editor and change the size of fonts and color in every single post, which makes them unreadable. Some of my Chinese friends use Chinese BSP (Blog Service Provider) like blogbus or blogcn. They are ok, but as most Chinese BSP have self-censor system to get rid of sensitive keywords. Also, you cannot control what kind of ads they will put in your blogs. You may see some hot girl photos flying around your blog and can’t do anything about that.

So, my advice would be set up your own blog. How? Here are a few tips from me.

(1) Buy your own domain

It’s not expensive to have your own domain. Go to GoDaddy.com to pick up one. I’m sure most people can afford. The biggest advantage of owning a domain is that you have total control of your blog. People only need to remember your domain (like mine “RichardHong.com”) and they can visit your blog or website whenever in the future, even when you change your host or simply just want to redirect it to any site you like. So get one. “.cn” is even cheaper, 1 yuan per year I think.

(2) Use a blogging software

If you like to play around with softwares and have the time and interest to learn, I recommend to buy a host and use a blogging software to write a blog.

For hosting, I have been using Dreamhost more than a year and very happy with their services. If you want to get one, either enter my promotional code (FRHong) or click here to register, you can get a huge discount. But of course, this is an option, not an ad. Other than Dreamhost, there are thousands of hosting company you can choose too. Just google it.

For blogging software, I am using WordPress and strongly recommend it as well. Alternatively, Movable Type seems to be a good one, although I haven’t tried it before.

(3) Using Blogger.com

If you just want to write something and can’t be bothered to learn complicated stuff, then Blogger.com is good option. It’s simply, easy and highly customisable. However, if you are in China, your blog may be blocked occasionally. In that case, you can use their FTP publishing function to publish. But you need your own domain and a bit web space. An example of publishing through own domain using Blogger.com is my Japanese blog, JP.RichardHong.com.

If you don’t like something more advanced than blogger.com, BSP like wordpress.com or Typepad can also give you free blogging services. However, they are blocked in China.

There are thousands of “how to blog” guides out there on the net, but these are what I recommend. Hope it will be useful to you. If you need any help, leave your questions in the comment.

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]]> http://blog.richardhong.com/2007/08/05/how-to-set-up-your-own-blog.html/feed 6 Blog is back http://blog.richardhong.com/2006/07/28/blog-is-back.html http://blog.richardhong.com/2006/07/28/blog-is-back.html#comments Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:27:08 +0000 Richard.H http://www.richardhong.com/215

First of all I need to thank those who let me by email or in Gtalk about having difficulty getting to my blog, really appreciate that! And I was also happy that people are reading my blog and check it frequently, a big motivation for me!

About the problem, it was a power outage in Dreamhost. I thought the guys wouldn’t take long to solve the problems, until it lasted for two days, so I dropped them a message. They replied within one hour, which was pretty impressive, and told me they changed the IP of my domain, I just need to modify it myself. I did, and problem solved, now my blog is back! Yeah!

If there is any problem in future, I will try to be the first one to know and solve it asap. However if you have any difficulties of accessing or posting comment, please do let me know, because I can’t use check those functions myself frequently. Appreciate that, thank you!

Ok, happy blogging, happy reading!

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