What Is Your Favorite Blog Tool And Why?

[StateDOG]

I am thinking I'm about to take the plunge and start up a blog or two (one personal, one for a specific line of information). But I'm not sure which is the best route to go.

I've narrowed it down to MoveableType and b2 with Grey Matter in 3rd place.

Anyway, which of these would you recommend and why? I realize that installation could be a tiny bit of a chore, but I think I can follow directions well enough. But I want one that is fairly customizable fairly easily. One of my blogs I want visitors to have to log in to be able to view it...the other is wide open. So the software should be able to handle that as well.

So, what is your fave and why? Why did you choose it over the others. Thanks in advance.

StateDOG

[Palmer]

Hmmm, not much of a blogger as evidenced by my blog here (http://www.yourwebbuddy.com/weblog/). Haven't updated it in almost a year. :)

Sorry, not much of an opinion here.

Palmer

[beetle]

Not a blogger myself, but almost every blog I read uses MoveableType. www.scottandrew.com is one, plus he regularly talks about using MoveableType. Check his archives...

[StateDOG]

And maybe I should ask about pMachine (http://www.pmachine.com) too. Someone turned me onto it earlier today. It looks to run on php/mysql like b2, and not perl/cgi like MT. It looks to have a feature list as robust as MT.

I'm still doing some digging around on the options. Thanks for any help you can give.

[Debbie]

pMachine is great. Easy to set up and comes with a lot of features. I'm using the free version on several of my sites. It can be set up as a simple news tool or more depending on which features you want to include. One of the major things I like about pMachine is the coding is xhtml compliant. That and the fact that it is so easy to add your own layout and graphics to it. You can basically design your page and then all you do is input the specific pMachine tags into the layout.

Another thing about it is the support is great. Rick Ellis, the guy who created it, originally started it out as a simple blog tool but over time has added more and more to it. He has a lot of great plans for the future.

Anyway...can you tell I like pMachine? :)

[vgarcia]

I'm not much of a blogger, because:
1. It would tempt me to rant about work, and I could possibly get in trouble for that, and
2. Many blogs remind me of LiveJournal (ugh).
That said, if I were to blog I'd probably write my own.