Go figure I almost didn’t write about WordPress. I guess I thought because this blog is powered by WordPress, it wouldn’t really need any further notice. But then I thought some more and figured that I may actually have a series of WordPress posts. I’m working on a couple of themes (just mods of Kubrick, actually) and may try my hand at a couple of plugins.

I’ve been a fan of WordPress since it emerged from being called b2. If you are a blogger, consindering being a blogger, or just like nifty web tools, WordPress is worth a gander. I’ve tested a number of blog tools and found WordPress to be the best, IMO. Now I should say that I only tried free/open source tools so I didn’t consider Moveable Type, which I hear is very nice. And I have more than one place to host my blogs, so I didn’t have to consider the cost of web hosting. If you want totally and completely free, you probably should go to Blogger. It’s not a bad setup and has lots of support (hey, with Google standing behind you, how can you go wrong).

If reliability of your web host is not a factor, you can probably find a free web host. You’ll need one that has PHP and mySQL available to you. I feel like “you get what you pay for” and if it’s free, don’t expect 1. your site to be up 24/7 with 99.9999% uptime and 2. a lot of support. You should be able to find a web host for about a small blog setup for about $5 – $10 / month. If that’s the case, then I’d say definately consider WordPress. It has become evermore popular since its earlier incarnations. Due to its popularity and the fact that it is open source, there have been a great many improvements and there are a wide variety of plugins available. The ease and availability of themes means that you can make it look like whatever you want with ease.

The current version, 1.5, continues their tradition of the “5 minute” install. And I would say that if you are even technologically challenged, as long as you can read, you should have no trouble installing WordPress and be blogging in a matter of minutes. (Of course, for those with a weak stomach when it comes to software, you could always find webhost that offers to set it up for you.)

Version 1.5 available here.