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Hello all, I'm wondering if anybody could give me any advice about starting a blog? My ever-growing collection seems to have got to a point where it's worthy of a little place online (just for myself and anyone else with an interest in diecast), but I'm a bit clueless about where to start. A friend of mine with her own business recommended 1and1 http://www.1and1.co.uk/ to me, but I'd like to hear some second opinions before I sign up. Could anybody give me any recommendations? Any tips and pointers would be very helpful. Thanks.

Hello MatchboxRex, I was under the impression this is what 'Facebook' is used for, a platform on-line for close friends etc to 'Blog and Blag' until their hearts content, plus you can often have it linked to a favourite forum, such as this one, perhaps, or have I got the wrong end of the stick...!

Ghosty.

Facebook isn't really like a blog. Yes you can post your pictures there, but they will disappear from view very quickly. A blog is more like a real website, where people can see all your posts and browse for what they are interested in.

The best blog platform is WordPress as it is used by almost everybody, is very easy to work with and is free!

There are two alternatives. You can set up a free Wordpress blog at wordpress.com, where they host it for you, so you have no costs involved at all, or you can pay for your own hosting (I recommend Hostgator for this as 1and1 is rather expensive and doesn't have a great reputation) and then install Wordpress there. Installation is easy as there is a one-click method.
The latter is by far the best method because when you use the option for Wordpress to host the site for you, you also give them the ability to delete all your hard work if they decide, rightly or wrongly, that you have broken their terms and conditions. This happens more often than you'd think and often for no good reason that anyone can fathom.

Don't forget that is you go the self-hosted route (by far the best way) that you'll also need to buy a domain name.

Martin

Wow, this is incredibly helpful, thank you!

I didn't even consider that sites could delete your stuff. Obviously I certainly don't intend to break any T&Cs but as you say, it's not worth running the risk of this happening. It'd be a massive pain to get that fixed.

Martin, I'll definitely investigate your suggestions further - it sounds like you're much better informed about such things than me!