Software Reviews

Blogging is stand for Web Logging, with the increased interest in Blog, many web-hosting providers now provide an  assortment of free usage, open source blogging software packages, as knows as CMS (Content Management Service). 

What's a content management system (CMS)? A content management system is software that keeps track of every piece of content on your Web site, much like your local public library keeps track of books and stores them. Content can be simple text, photos, music, video, documents, or just about anything you can think of. A major advantage of using a CMS is that it requires almost no technical skill or knowledge to manage. Since the CMS manages all your content, you don't have to.

Among the most popular of these blogging tools are B2evolution, Joomla, Wordpress, Nucleus, and Druppal. Each of these programs offer similar basic features, so the question arises as to which one is easiest to use and would be appropriate for the requipments of your particular website.

The answer lies in the true purpose of your blog website. If your primary goal is share your opinions and ideas with the general public, you would want to utilize a different blogging tool than a user who was creating product blogs as a commercial sales effort. A blog for search engine promotion would have entirely different requirements. All of these uses are viable reasons to create a blog, however each requires different features to be succesfull.

Joomla is an award-winning content management system (CMS), which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications. Many aspects, including its ease-of-use and extensibility, have made Joomla the most popular Web site software available. Best of all, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everyone. Joomla is designed to be easy to install and set up even if you're not an advanced user. Many Web hosting services offer a single-click install, getting your new site up and running in just a few minutes. Since Joomla is so easy to use, as a Web designer or developer, you can quickly build sites for your clients. Then, with a minimal amount of instruction, you can empower your clients to easily manage their own sites themselves.

If your clients need specialized functionality, Joomla is highly extensible and thousands of extensions (most for free under the GPL license) are available in the Joomla Extensions Directory.

Wordpress Blogging Software 

(download for free at  http://wordpress.org)

It hard to beat Wordpress for general personal software. Wordpress is an open source software, state of-the-art personal publishing platform with a focus on presentation and usability. Everything related to creating and updating your blog is available thourgh an intuitive graphhical interface. With Wordpress there is no need to compile your work. You simply write your column. you then select the features you want and your blog is instantly created and published to your website.

If you are on vacation, you can schedule your uploads for some date in the future or even email your column to the server. The system allows multiple family members or friends to create their own blogs along with yours. Easy customization and the availability of many "Wordpress Plug-ins" that provide more funcionally (add features as you learn) makes this software a very good choice for most individuals. 

B2evolution (available for free download at http://b2evolution.net)

B2evolution is another advanced web Blog tool that features an integrated XHTML validator. It support recursive subcategories, cross posting and has a really cool integrated "skinning" system. The "skinning" system allows you create multiple blogs in separate categories with different appearences for each blogs. You simply "change the skin" for the blog to create a totally new look and feel. The "skinning" feature, combined with the built in multi-user administration management tool, makes the system robust enought for more commercial endeavors, such as product promotion blogs. If you are have much to publish with multiple themes, this is the software you are looking for.

Nucleus Blogging Software (download for free at http://nucleuscms.org)

Though Nucleus is an extreamly robust blogging tool in its own right, it also contains some powerful features that can provide benefits in promotion of your blog. Nucleus offers the ability to optimize its URLS, creating simple page addresses that do not have and "&" or "=" characters. This makes the pages search engine (and user friendly). Another great feature is the abilityto show the content of multiple weblogs on one page. This allow a website owner to manipulate the optimum text/keyword balance on pages for better search engine rankings.

Nucleus also provide RSS and Atom feeds that can be extreamly helpful when promoting a website. If part of your blog's function is to work as a search engine marketing and promotion tool. Nucleus is a exceptional software package.

Drupal Blogging software (download for free at http://drupal.org)

Drupal is an open source Content Management Service (CMS) platform. Equipped with a powerful blend of features. Drupal supports a variety of website ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven websites.

Each of these blogging software packages offer the basic tools that you would need to create a successful blog and all three are PHP-MySQL open source packages. You should try to select the software that helps you archieve the long term goal that you have in mind for your website based on the unique extra features offered by each.