Ask the DW/LJ Brain Trust

[serene]

Okay, I've asked this in the past, but it's been a while and I'm working on a new (and exciting-to-me) blog project, so here goes:

DW? Wordpress? Typepad? Something else? (LJ is not an option.)

Considerations:

I think I want the thing on my own domain, which I've already secured, but I'm willing to be talked out of that idea.

I want to be able to choose either an ad-free blog or one on which I choose which ads are displayed. No automatic Google adbar, or anything like that.

More customizability is better, but since I'm really not a very good web programmer, it doesn't need to be down to the command line or anything. I'd love to be able to use custom CSS (I am pretty sure both Wordpress and Typepad offer that), and to view stats, but neither of those things is essential.

It doesn't have to be free; affordable is good, though.

Thoughts?

Comments

[maize]

I use Wordpress. It's free, offers everything you're asking for, and is pretty trivial to set up and work with.

That said, my friend Debbie Ohi recently had her Wordpress-based site hacked repeatedly, to the point where she decided to leave it for another platform. She documented her experiences. Let me find the link.

Okay, she documents the process of switching from Wordpress to Squarespace (which is a hosted service) here. Her post about the first hack attack, talking about what happened and what she was originally doing within the Wordpress envelope to cope is here.

[serene]

Thank you! I'll read those.

I'm leaning toward Wordpress, but I also have kind of an inkling that I may want to do a Dreamwidth thing, seeing as how I like the community here, etc. Still pondering.

[snippy]

I know several WP blogs that have been hacked repeatedly.

[maize]

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that it was unique to her -- just that she wrote about it so I thought I could find links to her posts. When she was talking about it she did say that it seems to be a common problem.