I searched the threads and read up on the blogs out there and it appears most of you guys use blogspot. A few friends recommended WordPress. I'm looking for feedback on either.

I actually went into WordPress last night .... I don't think I'm a stupid person, but I was pulling my hair out trying to figure that stuff out! I set up my whole website in less time than that! But friends think it looks more "professional". I didnt' see any "non-prof" looking ones on blogspot, personally.

How easy is (either of them) to set up? HOw long did it take you initially? Do any of you have the AdSense on your blog and what are the pro's/con's?

Appreciate any feedback or advice as I'm really getting pressured to blog!!

We have a little family blogspot address. It's pretty simple and easy to use. It's very user friendly. It just takes a few minutes to create one. =o) We do have AdSense on our blog too. Although, I didn't set that part up; DH did that. Personally, they drive me crazy cause they are always blinking on there. But my experience with blogspot has been very positive.

Indydebi: don't feel bad I started a wordpress blog and it took me forever to figure it and I consider myself to be someone who is technically sound. Once I got it figured out it was pretty easy. I've used both and I like wordpress better.

I use Blogger, but am considering moving to Wordpress because I've heard it has a bit more functionality and is easier to deal with than Blogger. I set up a Wordpress blog and everything went really smoothly, but since I haven't tried to blog from that account on regular basis yet, I can't say much more about it.

As to Blogger- if you stick with one of Blogger's generic default templates, it's very easy to set up. If you want a more customized look - know your html. Even uploading a pre-customized Blogger template (from an external source) proved problemmatic for me so I ended up going back to one of the default Blogger templates and doing my own coding to get the look that I want. A good informational resource on how to do your own customization is Blogger Buster.

I don't use Adsense, but I know a lot of bloggers do.

I ended up using Moveable Type. http://www.movabletype.org/

My website is hosted w/yahoo and this was one of the blog options. I found it very easy and when I have time I can go in and costumize it more, I just haven't.

www.kreacioneskity.com/blog

Blogspot is easier than Wordpress. You have to play around with wordpress to figure it out, and it is not as "intuitive" as Blogspot. (blogger and blogspot are the same, for those wondering)

Blogspot doesn't allow adsense until you reach a certain number of hits to your blog. I don't know the exact numbers though.

Anyway, if you want a no fuss tool...blogger is the best bet. It also links w/ gmail, so you don't have to log in through different windows. If you want more customized options and different layouts...then wordpress is the way to go.

i had a site with blogspot but i'm having one done now in wordpress and it looks a lot of better. You can do a lot more in wordpress but its not as simple to design with unless you know all your stuff.

theres also typepad which i don't use so i don't know much about but i think it's around the same place as wordpress as far as the professional look goes.
just my opinion- take it with a grain of salt since i don't use either of those!

I opened one on blogspot. It was very easy ... took me 5 minutes to get up and running. So I figure this will work to get me started and if I want to upgrade to something later, I'll have some know-how under my belt.

FYI: If something is blinking on your screen (or music is playing or whatever), you should be able to click the stop icon at the top of your browser to make it stop.

Indy I think Blogspot was a good choice. I had wordpress, it was just to dificult for me. There are a lot of different upgrades which I couldent comprehend how to do. I found it very user unfriendly in that regards. Also on wordpress I was bombarded with hundreds of junk comments waiting for my approval. With my new blogspot account I have no problems whatsoever. It's easy. It links to my gmail, I also have been editing my photos in Picassa lately which allows me to directly blog any photo on blogspot.

If you go on my website you can check out my blog. I'm not a pro but there is so much to learn with these things.

I also like the look of blogspot more as far as templates go.

imanah, how do you get 2 photos in the same post on two opposite sides of the blog, and one at the top and one at the bottom? when I go to post a pic, I dont' have an option of putting it at the bottom of the post? Train me!!!!!!!!!!!!

indy, the photos bug the heck outa me. You just have to drag them where you want when you're writing your post. I've been blogging with blogger for a while and I like it well enough. Not real difficult.

okay bare with me...I will tell you in my newbie way of doing it. There may be a quicker way.

For some reason I can't log on at the moment but when I do I will give you exact step by step instructions.

I make a blog entry usually you can only add 1 photo at that point.
When done, I usually then save as a draft, which then brings you to another window.
I choose to then edit that particular post.
For some reason there is a better tool bar in the editing section becuase then thats when I add the second photo. Its the top sort of right area of the tool bar.

Its strange but so far that is the only way I know how.

okay bare with me...I will tell you in my newbie way of doing it. There may be a quicker way.

For some reason I can't log on at the moment but when I do I will give you exact step by step instructions.

I make a blog entry usually you can only add 1 photo at that point.
When done, I usually then save as a draft, which then brings you to another window.
I choose to then edit that particular post.
For some reason there is a better tool bar in the editing section becuase then thats when I add the second photo. Its the top sort of right area of the tool bar.

Its strange but so far that is the only way I know how.

Coolio! I'll try that!

I add all of my photo's at one time. And then I go over to the right side of the box and in the upper right outside of the box where your pictures are, you will see two boxes. One says "Edit HTML" and the other says "Compose".

I just flip back and forth in between the two boxes. So I put the pictures up and the compose section is up. So to write (where I want to write), I go hit the "Edit HTML" button. You just write what you want before the <a or after the a>. Sometimes it gets confusing when there is no break. But it always starts with an <a and always ends with a>.

Then I just flip back and forth to make sure it's the way that I want it to be. Hope this helps!

Btw, I checked out your blog and it looks great!

Indy were u able to add the two photos?

I know now if I sign in and click new post I get a different thing then from picassa.

There is an add image toolbar there.

I guess for me I just drag pictures until I am happy with where it is or until I give up

I did the drag-thing and got my dog-bone cookie pic in the middle of the article like I wanted! THanks, gang!

Another thing (you might have figured it out already), you have to load your pictures backwards. So say you want your pictures to be in A, B, C order. You have to load C, then B, and then A in order to have A on the top.