If you haven’t noticed already, this is a WordPress blog you are reading. When I decided a couple weeks ago that I was starting a blog, I did a little research. Everything I read told me that WordPress was the best blogging software. That a sack of doorknobs could look at the software options available and would know to pick WordPress. Having previously tested my mental prowess against said sack of knobs, I deduced that WordPress was also the correct choice for me. I registered my domain with GoDaddy, then sauntered on down to WordPress.com and created an account.

What the hell? No wonder the sack liked this. I limited amount of layout options smacked of Geocities editor in the mid 90′s. No problem, I’ll just skip the interface and adjust the CSS. Wrong! I was directed to a page where I could purchase the option to use a CSS editor for $14.97 per year. Fucking clown shoes! I scanned down the list of other “premium” features and learned that I am also subject to randomly inserted advertisements and a 35 user cap. At this point it felt like I was buying a car. I knew I was getting screwed, but hey, I needed a car and I didn’t want to start the process over at another dealership. I banged out a quick home page and an introduction thread.

I mentioned my experience with my compadre Jesse at work the next day. He suggested (as he did the day before) that I host the blog myself using the WordPress software instead of their hosting service. Not wanting to leave a computer on 24/7, nor wanting to pay for hosting (I already spent $7.49 on domain registration and I’m Burt Reynolds after all), I started looking into free hosting services. I stumbled upon 000webhost.com. They were the only free hosting option I could find that didn’t cap the SQL database size (most had a 10-20MB database limit). They also had high limits for monthly traffic and storage. I set up a hosting account and uploaded the zip file containing the WordPress software. I was surprised to see that the file manager built into my hosting tools had an option to upload and auto-extract zip files. Nice.

In took less than five minutes from this point to create a database, edit my wp-config.php file and get the software installed. When finished, I fired up the admin tools and clicked the “Editor” button. Shazam! Full CSS control. Before I started to hack and slack, I browsed through the themes. There were just a biscuit under 1,000 available themes, compared to the 50 or so get with the WordPress.com hosting. I found and installed Atahualpa, made some tweaks and knocked out the logo you see at the top of this page.

So, here we are. What do I think? Well, I think I should have realized right off that I wouldn’t be happy with the limited options of a WordPress hosted blog. As for the their standalone software, I have to say, I am pretty fucking impressed. Then again, they tout their famous 5-minute install, so experience may just be par for the course. I’ll probably reevaluate my experience in a couple weeks after I have spent some time adding content. I am also impressed with 000webhost.com. If I ever find the need to increase my storage space or remove the traffic cap, I’ll definitely pay the $4.84 they are asking for unlimited service.

Cheers!

Kevin