i would like to put a blog/journal on my site. and i have heard of Diaryland.com, Blogger.com, and Greymatter but i dunno which one to use to because im new at this. i was wondering if anyone has used these which one is the easiest to use, the prettiest(maybe has smilies?) and the one with more tools? (like a commenting tool for guests). thanks!

part of it depends on what your host supports.

does it support Perl/CGI? PHP? MySQL?

I believe greymatter uses CGI, and I like b2, which uses PHP and MySQL.

if your host doesn't support any of those things, you need one that isn't hosted on your site, which I believe is how Blogger works.

im using geocities as my host.

then you are stuck unless you are going to switch to uk.geocities.com instead of geocities.com because uk version still does support FTP so you can use blogger.com with it

no offense, but i think becuase you are new to this blogger.com might fit the best for you :)

Love,
Mirna

and you can get free commenting to go with blogger from haloscan (http://haloscan.com). geocities.com doesn't allow ftp, but as Mirna said, uk.geocities.com DOES. Diaryland is remotely hosted, so if you don't want to switch you can use that, but it won't be ON your site and you can't use comments. my personal opinion would be to switch, sure you get a two letter longer url, but you have a better blog for it. :) Good Luck!

i dont really know how to switch :-\. can u use b2 with geocities? does blogger have smilies? and how do u download the blogs coz they all have pretty tricky, rather confusing downloads? :-\

You can't use b2 with geocities, since it doesn't have PHP/MySQL which is needed for b2. Blogger doesn't have smilies, although you could 'make' smilies by uploading some to your server and directly typing in the image code in your post.

switching is really easy. You just go to uk.geocities.com and your username is already set up for you! (gasp!) Then, you start building your pages like you would normally. Its quite simple. :)

Originally posted by Superstar
and how do u download the blogs coz they all have pretty tricky, rather confusing downloads? :-\

you don't download blogger.com It's an site where you update your blog with. www.blogger.com you might want to read about them there

as people allready said you have to get an commenting system for the comments.

I have a script for using smilies in your blog, but it requires PHP. So if you REALLY want that then maybe try to get hosted?

Love,
Mirna

does uk.geocities.com allow php and mysql?

Nope.

Ummmm, I use blogger and I really like it. I don't update very often, but when I do, all I have to do is enter my FTP info... It's very helpful to me, and they have this thing where you can choose your template or (I believe) make your own. I recommend that until you get more used to it... It's very uncomplicated and I like it a lot. So whenever you get switched to uk.geocities.com, just use blogger and get the feel of it. Then you'll be set for far greater things! There are several websites that offer templates that you can download, unzip, and then upload to your server. Then all you do is simply tell blogger the page of that template you want it to go to. Good luck and happy blogging =)

I think im ganna go with blogger. thanx CryptalClear! thanks u guys for all your help! :)

you're welcome! I'll have to visit your site sometime!

coolie, thanks! :D

quick question: is there anyway i can put smilies on my blog posts? or is there any program i can register for the smilies? (like 4 ex: haloscan is for commenting)

see if this helps:
http://www.quasigeek.net/~rewritable/smilies.html

yes, it does help! but there's a problem. uk.geocities doesn't allow php (or does it?) :-\

yep. uk.geocities.com doesn't allow php. but you can try http://www.lycos.co.uk

is lycos the one with tripod or angelfire? if it is i cant use them coz they have too much pop-ups then my computer freezes.