The Blogger Team has announced the Blogger Template Designer. The Blogger Template Designer will allow free bloggers greater customization of their blog templates (which dictate the presentation of the blogs) without knowing HTML or CSS.

The Blogger Team states:

The Blogger Template Designer allows you to create effectively infinite number of designs templates instead of being restricted to a limited number of rigid designs by making it easy to customize your blogs design, layout, background and much more. — The Blogger Team.

 

Features of The Blogger Template Designer:

• Beautiful new starting templates
• Choices of blog layouts with one, two and three columns
• You can now select from hundreds of background images
• Colors, fonts, and other parts of the free blog can be customized

Here is a video released by Blogger about the new Blogger Template Designer:

For too long the template choices at Blogger have been in need of updating. If you were capable with HTML and CSS, then Blogger did allow you to tweak your blog template as desired, and some were able to design their own unique Blogger templates. Overall though, most free Blogger bloggers stuck to the default and common template offerings. The end result was that for too long, too many free Blogger blogs looked like too many other free Blogger blogs. Free blogs with the same looks just kept getting stamped out one by one.

The new Blogger Template Designer is a step in the right direction for Blogger. However, if you want to have complete control over your blog the best solution is still to Own Your Own Blog by self-hosting a WordPress blog installed at your chosen web host and using your own registered Top Level Domain name as your blog’s URL.

Learn more about the Blogger Template Designer at Blogger in draft.

CSS is used with XHTML and HTML to define the way a web page appears and is formatted. For example, with CSS you can fancy-up and design your web pages so they have attractive text, create unique headings, have paragraphs with different looks, divide your page using columns and banners, arrange pictures and graphics with precision, and have text that is enhanced with rollover effects or styled however you imagine. There is much, much more you can do with CSS. CSS is cool stuff.

CSS is way to separate the presentation of a web page (the way it looks) away from its structure (its XHTML/HTML). XHTML/HTML is used to provide the structure of a web page, while CSS adds the design to the web page that makes the XHTML/HTML look good. Separating the structure of a web page from its appearance (CSS) will make your web page creation and management easier.

CSS The Missing Manual

If you want all paragraphs in your Web site to always appear in a certain font family, size, and color, you could accomplish this by adding a Font tag with the needed formatting attributes to each and every paragraph in each and every web page of your web site. This adds a lot of work to your web development, and swells the file size of each of your web page files because many instances of the same Font tag and its attributes will have to be added to format each paragraph.

With CSS, you can designate and define the look you want for all paragraphs on all the web pages of your Web site. You can place all of your CSS styling for your Web site into an external file and link to the CSS external file from within your XHTML/HTML web pages.

The web pages will use the style sheet to determine how the different parts of the web page look. When you associate an external style sheet with a web page, then the web page will use the style definitions in the external style sheet to create how the web page appears. This makes changing the way your Web site or blog looks very easy.

With an external style sheet, you can quickly and easily change the way how all of the paragraphs look on all of your web pages by simply editing the styles sheet file. There is no need to go back to each and every web page and change the Font tag and its attributes in each and every paragraph when you want to make the paragraphs look different.

With CSS external style sheet files, you change one file. This CSS file then is used by every page on your Web site to display content and information with the style you want. Can you see how much of a work and time saver CSS is?

CSS Benefits:

• CSS gives you many more formatting options than XMTL/HTML does.
• CSS can add a background image to your web pages, and you can control whether or not the background image repeats (or tiles).
• Because CSS eliminates the constant use of the Font tag to create a web page’s look, web page file size is less when CSS is used. Web pages will load faster when CSS is used.
• Because all of the styles that create how your Web site looks can be put into one special style sheet file, changing or updating the way your Web site looks is much faster and easier. Change one CSS file, instead of many XHTML/HTML files.

Here are some very simple examples of how CSS can change the way your content appears. I’ve created three separate paragraph styles and added them to the style sheet of my WordPress theme for this blog. The example text in the paragraphs feature an excerpt of The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln:

A paragraph CSS styled using font-size: large; font-weight: bold; color: Red;

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

A paragraph CSS styled using font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; color: Blue;

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

A paragraph CSS styled using font-size: x-small; font-weight: normal; color: Green;

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

This paragraph is another example of CSS styling, a red border was added to this paragraph using CSS. All of the above example paragraphs had their styles changed without using the Format HTML tag. CSS was used instead, for example, here is how the first paragraph appears as code:

<p class="RedPara">“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”</p> <p>

class=”RedPara” is the code where the CSS styling is applied to the first paragraph. The class=”RedPara” means that I have created a CSS rule (or style) in my external style sheet named RedPara, and that CSS style should be applied to that particular paragraph. In this case, the text of the paragraph is shown in red, with a large font size, and in bold. Likewise, I created other CSS rules (or styles) for the above paragraphs shown with blue and green text.

You can do many, many, things with CSS to enhance the presentation of your Web sites and blogs. This explanation does not even scratch the surface of all there is to discuss about CSS. I’ll have more to say about CSS later!

If you have a blog at a free blog host, such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com, then your blog can be shutdown by the free blog host.

You can prevent this by owning your own blog.

Earlier, in my Free Hosted Blogs and Self Hosted Blogs posts, I discussed the advantages of having your own WordPress blog with your own registered domain name, hosted at a web host of your choosing. This gives you complete control over your WordPress blog. You are the Big Kahuna, the Supreme Dictator of this kind of a blog because you Own Your Own Blog. You control how your blog looks, what gets posted, what topics you cover, what features the blog has, and … well, EVERYTHING!

The trouble with a blog hosted on a free-service like Blogger.com or WordPress.com (Remember, WordPress has a free blog service too, which is WordPress.com, besides the self-hosted version of WordPress that is installed at your web host – see WordPress.org for that version.) is you must agree to the free blog’s Terms Of Service (TOS). If you violate the TOS, then the free blog host can pull the plug on your blog.

It does not matter how much work and effort you put into this blog, or how much income you might be earning from the blog, or how popular your blog is. If you violate the TOS, then POOF!!! Overnight, your blog may disappear.

I was busy searching for a theme for an associate’s blog, when I followed a link to a blog I wanted to check out, then this WordPress.com TOS Blog Shutdown notice appeared on my computer screen:

I’ll bet the blog’s creator really enjoyed the emoticon WordPress.com placed on the bottom of its shutdown notice. A snotty thing for WordPress.com to do, in my opinion.

I have no idea what this free WordPress.com blog did to get shutdown. Here is the WordPress.com TOS.

I won’t divulge the URL of the Web site (Hah! So what if I did, this blog is deep-sixed now!), but this blog had been using WordPress.com for free blog hosting. The blog dealt with WordPress themes and in some way it must have violated the WordPress.com TOS.

WordPress.com pulled the plug on this blog … it’s gone.

If you are going to have a blog, and you plan to make it an endeavor where you put time, energy, effort, and thought into it, if you plan or hope to make money from the blog, if you are going to provide a service, or sell goods and merchandise, if you want to establish professionalism and credibility, then for goodness sakes Own Your Own Blog. Don’t be at the mercy of a free blog service’s TOS.

Own Your Own Blog, it’s really that simple.

Official WordPress Graphics, Logos, and Colors

WordPress has its own official graphics, logos, and colors you can use (if you want), in order to show off that you own a WordPress powered blog or Web site.

Of course, you are free to use whatever graphics, logos, and colors you choose for your WordPress blog or Web site. If you want some official and fancy WordPress stuff, then this post will get you started.

You may find these official WordPress graphics, logos, and colors on this web page at wordpress.org: WordPress Graphics, Logos, and Colors

The three colors WordPress recommends for WordPress print or online artwork:

Blue

Blue Pantone 7468 CMYK 97, 44, 26, 3 Hex #21759b RGB 33, 117, 155

Orange

Orange Pantone 1665 CMYK 6, 86, 100, 1 Hex #d54e21 RGB 213, 78, 33

Grey

Grey Pantone Black 7 CMYK 65, 60, 60, 45 Hex #464646 RGB 70, 70, 70

You might recognize these three WordPress colors. I use them as a graphic displayed here on www.wpblogsandwebsites.com. I also use these three WordPress recommended colors in this site’s favorite icon, which is used by your browser as part of the Web site’s bookmark. I have incorporated these three WordPress colors somewhat into this blog’s WordPress theme.

Here is a sampling of some of the WordPress graphics and logos:

A WordPress theme is what makes your WordPress blog look the way it does.

A theme is made up of many files (they are called template files) and they work together to create the presentation of your WordPress blog. The colors, where certain parts of your blog’s interface are placed, the graphics, are all part of your blog’s theme. A WordPress theme provides the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for your blog, it’s a way to "skin" your blog.

Many WordPress themes are available, many of them are free and some are premium themes that you pay for. There are good WordPress themes and there are bad ones too. Designing a WordPress theme is something you can learn to do. Many talented people design WordPress themes and earn money for their efforts.

When you have your own self-hosted WordPress blog, when you Own Your Own Blog, you can have whatever theme you want for your blog. You can even design your own WordPress blog theme from scratch if you want. Learn more about WordPress themes from the horse’s mouth at WordPress.org

You are not stuck with your WordPress blog theme once you choose it. Through the WordPress Dashboard, you can choose a different theme from the various themes you have installed with your WordPress blog. Changing to a new theme is as simple as making a few clicks. If you are like most WordPress bloggers, when you start your blog you probably will install a number of themes to experiment with until you find the one that’s perfect for you and your blog. That’s a great thing about WordPress themes … there is no "correct" theme. You select the blog theme that you want. A WordPress theme is not cast in stone, if you know how, you can tweak a theme and customize it the way you want.

WordPress has an official directory for locating themes you can use for your WordPress blog. These WordPress themes are free for you to download and use. You can search the WordPress Theme Directory for different styles of themes and you may preview the themes. Free WordPress Theme Directory

The theme I chose for www.wpblogsandwebsites.com is DeepBlue by Daily Blog Tips. This theme has two columns and I use the version with the narrower column on the right.

The description of this theme by its designer; "DeepBlue is an elegant, two column WordPress theme. It is advertising ready, and it comes with several advanced features, including Feedburner integration, author comment styling and search engine optimization."

I chose this theme because I like it and I think it represents well what I want to do with this blog. I am capable with PHP, XHTML, and CSS so I have tweaked the DeepBlue theme somewhat. I replaced the top horizontal navigation menu bar that came with the theme, to a drop-down horizontal navigation menu bar that I prefer. I also altered the header.php and the footer.php files (these are some of the theme’s template files) to change the appearance somewhat of the top and bottom of this blog. I am using various plugins to add some features to this blog, so I have gone into some files of the theme template and added some code to make these plugins work the way I want them to. Nothing to complicated really, just some minor PHP, XHTML, and CSS tweaking.

I wound up with a blog presentation that I like. Over time, I’m sure I’ll tweak it more, and maybe someday I’ll switch to a different theme if I think that needs to be done. Remember, WordPress themes are not cast in stone! You can switch themes and tweak theme as you desire.

It’s very easy to find free WordPress themes. Perform a Google search for "free WordPress theme" and you’ll get more results than Carter has oats. I got 45,600,000 results as I wrote this post. Browsing around for that perfect theme for your blog may take some time. Find one you like.

Here are a couple of videos about WordPress themes I think you’ll find helpful:

You might need to increase the volume with this below video. Or, maybe I need my ears cleaned out. Yeah, hunh!

These are called “hosted” blog platforms because a blog is created and hosted on the online blogging service’s domain and web space. You will have a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that will include your blog’s name and also the name of the online blogging service. An example of such an URL is: http://wpblogsandwebsites.blogspot.com/. This URL points you toward a free hosted blogger.com blog I set up as a demonstration. Although I was able use “wpblogsandwebsites” in the free blog’s URL, you can see how “blogspot” was added to the URL. This type of URL is not a Top Level Domain (TLD) because your blog is actually a subdomain of the free host service.

An example of a TLD is www.wpblogsandwebsites.com. TLDs are usually better than subdomain URLs because they add an impression of professionalism and seriousness to a blog or Web site. Fortunately, you often have the option of using a TLD with a free hosted blog, but then you will probably have to pay a fee to the free blog host for this privilege … which means your blog isn’t completely free after all. You’ll also have to pay to register your own domain name.

Probably the greatest advantage to a free hosted blog is the cost of hosting – it’s hosted free! You won’t have to worry about finding a suitable web host or paying a monthly or yearly hosting fee. Another big advantage to free hosted blogs is that they are very easy to set up. All you have to do is follow some online instructions, usually presented in a series of screens with fill-in-the-blank forms, and the blog is set up for you. You’ll probably choose from a determined selection of theme templates for the presentation and look of your blog.

With hosted free blogs, you don’t have to worry about keeping you blog’s platform (all of the code, stuff, and gizmos that make the blog work) updated yourself. That will be done automatically for you and behind the scenes.

Hosted Free Blog Disadvantages

• There will be less configuration choices than a self-hosted blog. You simply won’t be able to tweak you free blog as much as you could than if you self-hosted and Own Your Own Blog. At the start, this may not make much of a difference, however as your blog and your blogging demands and capabilities grow, you will probably find the lack of configuration choices a detriment. Free blog configuration limits can hold you back.

• You will have to choose your blog’s design, its theme, or look and feel, from a selection of canned themes. Some of the theme choices may have some design change options built into them, and the particular hosted free blog service you choose may allow some theme modification. Overall, you will be using themes or site designs that everybody else using the hosted free service chooses from. Your blog will probably wind looking like a lot of other blogs. With a self-hosted blog you can come up with a theme for your blog that can be unique, your own branded presentation.

• You don’t have complete ownership of your blog with a hosted free blog. The online service you use for your free blog keeps ownership of the URL associated with your blog. You will have the ownership of the content you create for your blog. You will have to live with the way your blog works on a hosted free service. You can’t change or improve the blogging platform, you just make do with what is offered. With a self-hosted blog, you own the whole shebang and can do what you want, you Own Your Own Blog. That’s a very good thing.

• I’ve discussed this above, but remember that the default URL you wind up with at a hosted free blog is not a TLD. The URL of your free blog will by default, include the name of your free blog online hosting service. A self-hosted blog with a TLD, is professional and more impressive.

• It can be a challenge to move your hosted free blog over to a self-hosted blog if you ever decide to make the switch. You will have to export your free blog content, and then import it to your self-hosted blog. This may or may not go smoothly. Personally, I’ve had good luck exporting and importing blog content from a free blog to a self-hosted blog. But, things can go wrong and my palms were a bit sweaty each time I did this. The worst-case scenario is that content can be lost or not imported to the new self-hosted blog. Your blog’s content is all the effort and hard work you put into making your posts. You don’t want that to disappear for forever with the click of your mouse. Just keep in mind that moving content from a free blog to a self-hosted blog can be risky.

Own Your Own Blog!

Owning your own blog by using WordPress as your blogging platform, having it self-hosted, and having your own registered domain name, is the most professional and serious way to go about having a blog or Web site, in my opinion. You will maintain control your blog and a third-party (a freely hosted blog company) will not impose limitations or constraints on your blog, or what you do with it.

Free host blog services all have their Terms Of Service (TOS) agreements. You must agree to the TOS if you want to use the free host blog service. If a free blog host thinks your blog violates their TOS, then it can shutdown your blog. The blog you put so much time and effort into can disappear by the actions of a third-party.

A Google search of “blogger tos shutdown” reveals some interesting situations free bloggers have encountered with TOS shutdowns by the free host Blogger.com. Here is a link you might find worrying: Who’s responsible for shutting down a number of anti-Obama Blogspot accounts?

This deals with some political blogs that have been shutdown by Blogger.com (An aside: Blogger.com is part of Google, and Google supports Obama and liberal views. Blogger blogs with opposing political views have been shut down. Take this for whatever it’s worth. I’m not turning this into a political discussion, the point is that Blogger’s TOS gives them the power to make blogs disappear, and some have disappeared.)

You have to realize that a free blog host can pull the plug on your blog. A word to the wise is sufficient …

The opposite of a self-hosted blog is a blog that is hosted at an online service such as blogger.com or wordpress.com. These are free blog hosting services, as you do not pay a hosting fee to have a blog at them. There are plusses and minuses to both self-hosted and hosted blogs. I’ll discuss free hosted blogs in another post. I’ll focus mostly on WordPress self-hosted blogs here.

There can be some confusion about WordPress blog hosting. There are two WordPress Web sites where you can start your blogging adventure.

• There is http://www.wordpress.org – This is where you can download WordPress that you will install on a web host’s server. This is for those who want to self-host a blog. You have complete control of your blog and its future. This is your choice if you want to Own Your Own Blog.

• There is http://www.wordpress.com – This is the free hosted version of WordPress. Here you can setup your blog by following online instructions and the blog is created automatically for you. Not as flexible and not as much control as a self-hosted blog.

The great advantage to a self-hosted blog is that you gain total control over your blog. This means you have the freedom to make your blog look and operate the way you want and no one can limit what you do with your blog. Probably most important, you can blog about anything you want, it’s all yours.

With a self-hosted blog you can choose how your blog looks, what theme it uses … the colors, layout, typography, and graphics. You also have total control over the technical parts of your blog. With WordPress you can choose and add from a myriad of plugins (think of plugins as special gizmos that do certain blog jobs for you) to enhance the functionality of your blog. You can tweak and adapt your blog the way you desire.

Having your own domain name (a URL) is important if you want to make a professional impression with your blogging efforts. People simply take a Web site with its own Top Level Domain (TLD, www.wpblogsandwebsites.com is an example of a TLD) name more seriously than a Web site with a URL like; http://wpblogsandwebsites.blogspot.com/. That URL points you toward a hosted for free blogger.com blog I set up as a demonstration. You can see how “blogspot.com” gets added to the URL for this free hosted blog, this means it is not a TLD.

Please note that I do not mean to say that all free hosted blogs are not professional and are substandard. I mean to explain that sometimes they are perceived that way, starting with their domain names. I have had, and do have, too many free hosted blogs myself to say they are all unprofessional and substandard. Many of them are top-notch because their creators have put a lot of effort into them. I simply think that a self-hosted WordPress blog with its own domain name looks more professional.

I know for certain that I have total control over my self-hosted www.wpblogsandwebsites.com blog, and that I don’t have total control with the hosted free http://wpblogsandwebsites.blogspot.com/ blog where I am subject to the limitations that blogger.com imposes.

Although you will have to pay for web hosting, and to register and keep a domain name (these fees are affordable as there is much competition in these markets), with a self-hosted blog, if you choose WordPress as your blogging platform, then you won’t have to pay a single cent for WordPress itself. WordPress is Open Source and is free, there are no licensing fees involved. That’s a pretty good deal!

All this sounds great about self-hosting, but what aren’t you telling me?
– Because you have total control over your blog, you must manage it. You are the one who looks out for its health. So, some technical skills and knowledge can’t hurt. WordPress is already pretty easy to manage and with the addition of a few plugins, it’s even easier. With each version and update of WordPress it keeps getting easier and easier to manage a WordPress blog. A lot of what you need to do to keep your blog running smoothly and updated is accomplished by making a few clicks within your WordPress blog’s administration interface.

- You will pay for your web hosting when you self-host your WordPress blog. When you register your own domain name for your blog, you will pay a fee to a domain registrar (GoDaddy is an example of a domain registrar). Your web hosting and domain name registration fees are ongoing. You will pay for your web hosting by a monthly or yearly plan, and your domain name registration will usually have a yearly fee with the option to pay for multiple years. As I have mentioned, these fees are affordable. They are worth their cost if you want your blog to be a professional effort.

- You will have to manage your web hosting. This sounds intimidating and there will be some things you need to learn, but good web hosts have made it as easy as possible for you to setup and choose your web hosting options. A good host will have an online interface that makes it easy to manage your hosting and will have online help and tutorials available to answer your questions. Often, a web host will have a “Live Chat” option you can use to ask questions of a real person by chatting with them through a messaging interface. Often too, phone support is available. Web hosts can’t afford to have their services be like learning rocket science for their clients. Just like WordPress, web hosts are always working to make life easy for users.

Own Your Own Blog!
In my opinion, owning your own blog by using WordPress as your blogging platform, having it self-hosted, and having your own registered domain name is the most professional and serious way to go about having a blog or Web site. You will control your blog and another party (like a freely hosted blog company) will not impose limitations or constraints on your blog.

A fact of the free host blog services is that they all have their Terms Of Service (TOS) agreements. If a free blog host thinks your blog violates their TOS, then it can shutdown your blog. Overnight, your blog that you put so much time and effort into can disappear. It happens. You might get what you pay for with a free blog.

A Google search of “blogger tos shutdown” can reveal some interesting situations other bloggers have encountered with TOS shutdowns by Blogger.com. Here is a link you might find interesting: Who’s responsible for shutting down a number of anti-Obama Blogspot accounts? This deals with some political blogs that have been shutdown by Blogger.com (An aside: Blogger.com is part of Google, and Google supports Obama and liberal views. Blogger blogs with opposing political views have been shut down. Take this for whatever it’s worth, the point is Blogger’s TOS gives them the power to make blogs disappear, and some do.) You have to realize that a free blog host can pull the plug on your blog. A word to the wise is sufficient …

If you are going to spend serious time and effort creating a blog, if you are going to blog to earn money, or sell products and services, then self-hosting is the way to go.

Be free and have control. Own Your Own Blog!

• Self-host your blog
• Register a domain name
• Use WordPress as your blogging platform

WordPress is an excellent choice for your blogging or Web site platform. There are many reasons why WordPress is so great, here are a few:

• WordPress can do just about anything you want to use it for. It can be a blog only, it can be a Web site only, it can be a Web site with a blog, it can cut your grass … okay, okay, WordPress can’t cut your grass. You can use WordPress to blog about everything your cat does, or you can use WordPress to blog about your doctoral study of lions, tigers, and bears and how to save them. You can use WordPress to create a Web site or blog, or both, about your small business and have customers order your goods and services online. Or, you can use WordPress as a site for your huge corporation. Your imagination will lead you to what you want WordPress to do for you.

• WordPress is free. It won’t cost you a penny to use the WordPress blogging platform. There are no license fees to use WordPress. Owning your own blog is something I highly recommend. If you want to Own Your Own Blog, you will have to pay a fee to a web hosting service, and a fee to register a domain name. These costs are not great, and for the control you gain over your site, they are worth it. Web hosting costs vary considerably, but there are many fine web hosts that charge a very affordable fee. Domain name registration should cost you very little.

• From humble beginnings in 2003, WordPress has grown to be the largest self-hosted blogging platform in the world. WordPress is used by millions of Web sites/blogs and these sites are viewed by tens of millions of people each and every day. WordPress is not small potatoes, WordPress is the Big Kahuna. WordPress is a mature and stable product.

• Documentation and support of WordPress abounds. The WordPress Web site (wordpress.org), is jam-packed with information. You can’t search the Internet without finding tons and tons of places that have information on WordPress. You’re looking at one of those sites right now. You can’t sling a dead cat on the Internet without it landing on a WordPress Web site of some kind. Information about WordPress is readily available.

• WordPress is constantly being worked on and improved. It’s already very good, but it keeps getting better. There are people from all over the world working on WordPress to improve it because it is an Open Source project. They are busy right now coming up with the next WordPress release. They always are.

• When a WordPress update comes out, with the current version of WordPress it is as simple as clicking a button to get a WordPress blog caught up to the new update.

• WordPress follows XHTML and CSS (this is code stuff that helps make the blog work) standards put forth by the W3C. This means your WordPress site will display properly when viewed in standards-compliant browsers. This is a good thing.

• Compared to other blogging platforms, installing WordPress is user-friendly. It can be technically challenging to install any blog if you are a newbie or a decided non-geek, and sometimes even for experienced geeks too, but WordPress installation can be considered to be less threatening and challenging than some other blog installations. You can find people who will provide a service of installing and setting up a new WordPress blog for you. These services will get your blog installed with a theme (more about themes below) of your choosing and install and setup a selection of plugins (more about plugins below) to get your new WordPress site ready for the big-time world of blogging. HINT: I provide a WordPress blog installation and setup service for a modest fee. This will protect you from the geeky technical code stuff, and get you ready for what you really want to do – which is blog! Please contact me using my Contact Form if you would like to know more.

• In order for a web host to be able to run WordPress, there are two requirements of the web host that must be met: PHP version 4.3 or greater, and MySQL version 4.0 or greater. PHP and MySQL are the backbone code of WordPress, they are what make WordPress work. Most web hosts meet these PHP and MySQL requirement easily, and probably exceed them.

• You can easily change the way your WordPress blog looks simply by installing and choosing a new theme. WordPress uses themes for the way its blogs look and feel. Themes are all about the presentation of your WordPress site. There are more free themes available on the Internet that you can use for your blog than Carter has oats. If you want, you can also buy a premium theme developed by a WordPress theme design expert. Choosing your theme for your WordPress blog is a personal choice. You have many places to look for your theme, and many, many themes to choose from. WordPress installs with some basic default themes, so you’re all set from the get-go. If you want, you can also design your own theme, or have someone tweak a theme so that it’s just right for you.

• WordPress is very flexible and customizable. WordPress plugins are gizmos you can add to your WordPress site to give it more functionality. There are tons of plugins available. Whatever job or chore you need your WordPress site to do, chances are someone has developed a plugin to do just that. There are many things you can do yourself without knowing how to code in XHTML, CSS, or PHP and MySQL (the code that makes WordPress work – WordPress is based on PHP and MySQL), depending on the theme and plugins you choose. If you are capable in these Web site development languages, then you can tweak your WordPress site to your heart’s desire. If these languages are nothing but gobbledegook to you, and you just can’t find a plugin to do what you need done, then there are WordPress coders you can hire to make the changes you want.

• WordPress provides strong aggregator support. Many standard RSS configurations are included. This means your blog readers will have choices when they choose to subscribe to your blog. Another good thing.

• WordPress will let you communicate your passion, your expertise, your knowledge, skills, and abilities, your business, to the entire world. You can do this from your top-floor corporate office, or from the spare closet in the extra bedroom of your sister’s apartment. All you need is a computer, an Internet connection, WordPress installed at a web host’s server, a domain name, and your imagination, smarts, and effort. You could change the world, or your life … for the better. It can all begin with a WordPress blog.

This Is Important
When you host a WordPress blog on your chosen web host’s server, you have total control. When you Own Your Own Blog, you are the Czar of your blog. Its future is always in your hands. Your work will not be jeopardized by the policies enacted by a third-party that hosts your blog for free.

When you install a WordPress blog at a web host of your choosing, and use a domain name for that blog you have chosen and registered, then you are going first-class with your blogging efforts.

I think WordPress is wonderful. I think you will too.

What are you waiting for?