"charlie b" wrote in message
...
Derek Andrews wrote:
\
Have you ever considered using a blog? Blogger.com provides the free
software and blogspot.com will host it.

No, I havent - and here's why.

There's no such thing as a free lunch when it comes
to "Dot Coms". The "free" "software" often generates
code that you don't even know about, and visitors
may not know about - ie - files, scripts, applets
etc. that get downloaded to the visitor's computer.
"Cookies" are probably the most benign of these
types of things. Your seafoamwoodturning site
for example, sends several 8k "show_ads.js"
files to my computer - the .js identifying a
java script. The file name "show_ads" gives
me the idea that the java script would show
an advertisement on my computer monitor. My
web browser catches these "hidden files" and
lets me decide what to do with them before
they are executed/run on my computer.

In addition, the "free" software is pretty
clunky compared to a commercially available
web site building package - like Adobe's
Go Live for example - which is what I use
for building my sites. EVERY THING on
my sites I PUT THERE, knowingly. There
are no Cookies, no Pop Ups, no Redirects
etc.. I pay for my ISP, my web site building
software etc. and I make the content, put
it up and maintain the site. It's not a
money generator for me, and other than
my ISP getting paid to provide the server
and net access, no one makes any money
off my site. Not so for any of the "free"
"Dot Com" "services.

rant mode off

charlie b

Charlie, I find your comments and some of Greg's and these others to be cool
stuff and extremely helpful. While it may be OffTopic, for those of us who
use computers but don't understand all this "crap", it's great to hear some
of what's going on. We're not interested in how the watch is made - just
what time it is - and some of these quick insights are very relevant to our
online life. Thanks.

TomNie