Making a case for Blogger : Blogger vs Wordpress

If you ask me which one is better choice self hosted Wordpress or Blogger with your own domain, I am inclined to say Blogger with your domain is much better choice. Don’t take me wrong, Wordpress is great blogging CMS and with ever-growing community support you can always get better features than Blogger. But why Blogger than?

1. Most serious Blogger starts Blogging as Hobby -  When Blogging is not your full time business. Self hosted Wordpress blog facilitates a lot of cool features at the same time it brings administrative headache. One need to have some technical expertise and time to manage the self hosted Wordpress blogs. You should be prepare to take daily backup (or weekly back up) of database, keep abreast of security updates, and update your blog time to time. All these extra work is taken care by Blogger if you choose Blogger with your own domain.
2. Blogger is feature rich as well – It may be true Blogger is not as flexible as Self hosted Wordpress blog, at the same time Blogger is feature rich as well. You can add Widgets. There are so many ready to use Widgets and flexibility to add HTML/Javascript widgets. It make Blogger platform as feature rich as well.
3. Adsense Ready – Blogger blogs are Adsense ready and one can add Adsense code  with one click on the blog.
4. Scalability -  Once a blog popularity grows and your blog is in top 1000 blogs of the world,self hosted Wordpress blog may give you scalability headache. On the other side, all scalability issues is taken care by Blogger. Even if your blog is number 1 blog of your niche, you won’t face any scalability issues with your blog.
5. Visitor stats -  Blogger has introduced a rich visitor stats feature. Its cool.
6. Cost – Self hosted Wordpress blog have hosting cost besides domain name cost while Blogger blogs with your own domain only have domain name cost.

In my opinion, if you are serious with Blogging at the same time just starting with Blogging you should choose Blogger  instead of self hosted Wordpress blog. I will be more than happy to hear your side of story.

Windows Live Writer Review as offline blog editor

Windows Live writer is a feature rich offline blog editor.Best part is its free and comes from Microsoft.First thing first, why to use an offline blog editor.There are many reasons to do that.

1. I use Blogger for this blog, The editor at blogger is not easy if you have to create well formatted post, it becomes a pain.Try adding image in your blog using blogger, It doesn’t create link to the image.So, if image is big, a reader can’t just click and see full size image.
2. It is easy to create ordered list and un ordered list in Windows Live writer.You can even create nested unordered list inside and ordered list.
3. In Windows Live editor you may choose hyperlinks attributes easily like nofollow,open in new windows etc
4. With WYSIWYG editor its easy to put a html table in your blog.
5. You use add source code or consol output in you blog it has plug-in to help you format it better.
6. When you are creating a long post it is hard to edit and maintain it in Blogger default editor.
7. You cann’t track word count in Blogger default editor,Windows live writer helps you track word count as you type.

I used Windows live editor, for my last post having more than 2200+ words, I didn’t have to edit html source for more than couple times.Also, if you plan to edit html source itself,it is much easier to do in Windows live writer.Best part is that its free and do have some productive plugging you may choose to enhance your blogging experience. When I blog with Windows Live editor all I have to concentrate on content and not worry too much about formatting. Did you find this review helpful?

Is wordpress with your own domain is better than Blogger?

I read a few professional bloggers posts regarding choice of platform for blogging. All of them says having your own domain based blogging is better. In long run, when you blog you create a brand. If one has Blogspot or Wordpress.com based blogging it kills your brand.
  Other option one has is use Blogger with your own domain.Blogger provides step by step guide to do so.As per John Chow if you stick with these free services you compromise on feature.
So I have decided to try my own domain name as well as hosting. My choice of software will be Wordpress with plugins.
 

Yet another blog started but with a mission

Thousands of blog start everyday and many of them is one day affair. I started blogging in 2002 albeit on and off. I was a software professional and used to save resources in blog format.Today, I started this blog with a mission. Mission is that I would be a professional blogger.My plan includes networking with people and make it a group blog.
Why I chosen Blogger/Blogspot? In past, I did develop a few websites in part time with very limited success. Many of the websites got defaced. On some of the websites hackers have planted malware. It is a tedious task to maintain a website. Getting software to run a website or blog is simple work.There are open source alternative for almost all the needs. But it has limitations as well. Even Micorosoft Windows OS is prone to viruses because of security holes. So are open source alternatives that is used to create websites and blog. Keeping track with security patches of these softwares are pain in the neck.Based on my experience the option I had to choose between Blogger and hosted WordPress. Both are excellent software.Wordpress don't allow Google Adsense ad in free hosted version. So my choice is Blogger.
There are Limitation of Free accounts - In today's world success in blogging means using a lot of social networking  tools on your blog. Blogger doesn't provide all those tools to you. Blogger widgets fills some of the gaps. Still I feel Blogger needs improvement to include those tools by default.
OK this is the first post and you are welcomed on my blog.