Web-logs or “blogs” for short, are popping up everywhere. They are online diaries, frequently updated, which often invite links and comments from other bloggers. Blogging services make it easy for anyone who can type to create a journal on the web. Why do people blog? To keep in touch with family and friends, to release the columnist within, to promote a business. There are as many reasons as there are bloggers.

Several free services make it easy to blog. One of the most successful is Blogger. Blogger describes itself as "Push-Button Publishing." The goal is to make publishing easy. Go to http://www.blogger.com , and you can't miss the link to start your own blog.  Creating an account means filling out a web form, like you might when ordering a product from a website.  Within minutes you are ready to publish, no technical skills required. 

A new blogging services that is getting buzz is http://www.vox.com .  It improves on the ability to mix photos, audio and video with your text.

Here are some of my favorite blogs.  Those with an asterisk are shameless promotion for the blogs of folks I know.

• Internationally published fantasy author (and former SWCP Tech Support Director) Daniel Abraham - * http://bram452.livejournal.com

• Nationally recognized watercolorist (and spectacular wife) Jae Drummond - * http://jkdrummondart.blogspot.com

• Web-guru Jon Udell - http://blog.jonudell.net

• Everyone’s favorite cartoon geek, Dilbert - http://dilbertblog.typepad.com

by Josh Gentry, Systems Administrator

from SWCP Portal, May 2007