Yeah, the blog format is pretty simple. I went with blogger because it's a goggle site, I didn't need to make a password, or user name since I had google accounts.

Not sure if blogger or wordpress are better than one another, but they seem to be the two big sites for this sort of stuff.

Also a note to add to what Wes said (and he might have already said this but I am running short on time).

Feedburner is a great addition to blogs, it tracks and helps promote them.

I don't have ads on my site, so I don't care about AdSense or anything like that, but I have to say, if you are blogging and you don't care if anyone is reading it what is the point? Unless you are just doing it as a live journal type thing, but most people taking the time to write and photograph are expecting someone to read it. So getting an idea of what gets hits, and who is reading it is great. Most people don't comment on random blogs, I know I don't, but that doesn't mean they didn't read it. Seeing incoming traffic sources, time on site, and key word entries is cool. I noticed my trip reports get a lot of reads, and the maps I post are the most viewed photos (sadly). But I can't feel bad, I peruse blogs and family trip reports looking for pre trip info myself. These days guide books are the thing I buy a few weeks before the trip, when I know where I am going and what I want to do, all via blogs and photo sharing sites.

Anyway, Feedburner was more simple for tracking stats but Google killed feed stats and added analytics which is accessible from the feedburner page.

Personally, Feeburner stats were easier to read quickly but Google Analytics is WAAAY more powerful for those actually making money or attempting to off a blog. Since I have a real job, and make some cash from photography when motivated to do so, I decided not to blast my site with ads that we are all drowning in so I could make $5 a month (1000-2000 hits per month which is 7000% above the google analytic benchmark for a site my size). However, some people might want to make a run at pulling in big bucks from micro pennies per hit and make a 6 figure salary from their easy chair with a netbook on the lap. I'm guessing to make a living off a blog you need to get about 150,000 hits a month or more, and that would yield you a minimum wage living!!!

Anyway, despite having 3 domains names (if you don't buy your desired domain, someone else will!!!), I've sort of defaulted to the blog as easy street for website development. One day, I'll get the desire to rebuild a proper site, and one day pigs will fly and black flies won't bite....

Heh, my coder friends say drupal is a hella nightmare and that if you want something like that, joomla is a way better choice.

The behind the scenes tech people are becoming less and less relevant these days, and content is becoming easier to create and manage. As a network engineer, I see the writing on the wall, and I moving away from that stuff as fast as I can.

It is amazing to me that you can create and mange a pretty cool website, with almost zero html/css knowledge these days.

Your coder friend is sadly mistaken. Joomla is a blunt instrument and at best suited for brochureware sites. Sony Music, Popular Science, Recovery.org and the Department of Defense all agree on this point.




That's pretty amusing. Management and content types have been telling themselves that developers are largely irrelevant for a couple decades now. This fallacy is easily debunked when you stop for a moment and consider who writes the plugins for your CMS of choice, who audits these tools for security concerns, and who issues patches as needed.

Simply put people with little inclination to learn the technology have been able to put together glib vanity websites since Geocities was unveiled, the tools to do this sort of thing have just gotten more sophisticated. However, to do anything serious requires (and will continue to require) the skills of a trained professional.



I suspect our definitions of "pretty cool website" differ wildly, but I definitely agree with what you're saying. There are at least three open source content management systems that allow you to bolt together a pretty full-featured website with little or no understanding of code, markup or styling required.



Full disclosure:

I am a professional web developer active in the Drupal community. I have vetted Wordpress, Joomla and Movable Type for various projects and have dismissed them for anything beyond simple blogging or brochureware.

So what would you guys recommend for the following:

- A Photoblog of sorts (not much text at all, maybe a small paragraph describing who/what/where/when)
- Groups/galleries displaying latest content but image protection to keep people from stealing you hardwork. This is one reason I'd prefer not to externally store my images on Flikr etc.
- Ideally, I'd like to have a login (of sorts) so individuals or certain groups can see specific content that is meant for them (e.g. - Climbers don't want to see 40,00 pics or my kids, but my Mom sure does).

If you're serious about trying to protect your work on the internet your only options are displaying low quality images and/or watermarking. It is not possible to prevent someone from copying an image off of your website.

You're going to run into non-trivial problems with groups/permissions if you attempt to implement what you're describing in Wordpress. This is a well known limitation of that CMS. I would suggest taking a look at Joomla as it offers a decent option between the easy (but very limited) Wordpress and the incredibly flexible (but complex) Drupal.

Also, what do you guys use for image tagging? Does Wordpress have the functionality to do this for mass image groupings as well as individuals?

I realize the limitations of trying to protect content on the web, but at the very least, a flash gallery will limit it to screen capturing in stead of a straight "save as".

There is also the transparent gif overlay which works similarly to flash in terms of protection. Anyone use this?

Watermarking is fine, but for it to be truly useful it would need to interfere with the photo subject/composition.