how
This is how I built and maintain calepwhoward.com. This page is here to help other bloggers get started or find the stuff I am using on the site. This is also the page where I get to talk about how since I don’t get to do that during the day.
Hosting
godaddy.com: I just moved to godaddy.com (hence the recent outage). I have no idea what to expect but they’re cheap. I’ll probably get what I’m paying for.
Blogging Software
wordpress.org: The first version of calepwhoward.com was based on MovableType. It was a serviceable blogging system but it went commercial. Now there’s a free version for personal publishing and an open source version (MTOS) but I’ve moved on. Being a cheapskate I didn’t want to pay for blogging software so I decided to make the switch to WordPress. WordPress is free (well, as free as any open source software anyway) and has a robust user community. There are piles and piles of themes, widgets, plugins, and hacks for WordPress so I can do everything I want to do without having to write a bunch of code I don’t have time to write anyway.
My Toolkit
Hardware – MacBook Pro: A long-time Mac owner and fanboi I sold my 17″ G4 PowerBook before there was no value left in G4-based Macs. I then went back to using my beloved ThinkPad as an Open Source box until Zeek! killed the machine. The replacement for that workhorse was a previously-enjoyed 15″ MacBook Pro. While I miss the classic ThinkPad I do like the MacBook Pro. It really does just work.
HTML Editing – Smultron ($0.00): There are piles of free HTML editors. I chose this one because it had a few good recommendations and seems to work just fine.
FTP Client – Cyberduck ($0.00): You can’t manage a WordPress site without an FTP client.