I see so many places such as Blogger, Eponym, Squarespace, etc...

But, what are you B$ members using?

I would prefer a free site, although, does that mean I have to have "advertising" in it? Please recommend your choices and let me know why you like the sites you like!!
TIA

You could try http://wordpress.com/

I've never used that site before since I could just install WordPress on my own site. But this lets you use WordPress without having to install it yourself. It's pretty nice blogging software.

there are so many places to blog it's ridiculous. myspace being an obvious high profile one. if you want to share the blog then most convenient to use whatever friends are using

grrr, I just checked out blogspot (blogger) -- it seems ok, but it does not let me categorize my posts like wordpress does, however, wordpress does not let me use Adsense or Chitika.

What I'm trying to do is to create a blog that will allow me to share things with my friends, clients and acquaintances at the same time that I should be able to add some affiliate links and do some "light and discreet" advertising for my products... any ideas?

If you liked wordpress.com and you have your own domain & web hosting, then you might want to consider installing the full version of WordPress. The full version is completely customizable and there might even be plugins available to add Adsense & Chitika to your blog.

A lot of web hosts even offer tools that will automatically install scripts like WordPress. So if you have a domain and a host already, you might want to check if your host offers something like that.

So far I like wordpress, but I wish there was a tutorial on several of the things there... i.e. I have no idea what a trackback is...
And I think I may have to put the full version in my server, although I have no idea how, yet...

For Myshell:

Other places to blog:

http://www.livejournal.com

http://www.xanga.com

I think that if my friends/family who aren't so experienced with computers can use these sites, then anybody can.

For Monga:

For WordPress tutorials, try searching the official online documentation for anything WordPress-related you have questions about.

Dreamhost (hosting company) has one click installs which include Wordpress. No uploads, FTP, or anything, just access your panel, and click one link to install wordpress on your hosted domain.

I don't suppose 1and1 does the same, right? (I currently have 1and1)
Are there any good deals on hosting with dreamhost?

I just checked my 1and1 control panel and there's no one click install of WordPress that I can see.

There are other web hosts that have one click installs. HostPC offers this using Installatron, and I had some CPanel web hosts that used Fantastico auto-installer. So if there aren't any Dreamhost deals, then it's not your only option.

I found two other free wordpress hosts:

http://www.blogsome.com

http://www.blogthing.com

I'm not sure if you can use Adsense or Chitika with them though.

Miranda, you are a treasure trove of blog knowledge!

i need to get going on a blog, though I dont know who would actually read mine:)

I think this thread has inspired me to get into blogging again.

I used to have WordPress installed on the main page of my domain, but my site has gone through a few changes since then with WordPress files being moved around to different directories. I just reconfigured it tonight so that it actually works again.

I started reading through some blog posts I made in 2004. Wow, it totally brings back some memories of things that I had forgotten about. Hehe. It's kind of fun reading these old posts. Maybe I'll start writing again.