Both FrontPage and Dreamweaver are tools that assist with the creation of HTML code for Web pages. In other words, they're computer programming systems.

I've been in computer programming for over 25 years, and I can say with confidence that it's a very bad idea to "homebrew" something that is already excellently developed and commercially available. For example, it would be foolish to use Visual Basic and to try to write a personal accounting system when you can go down to your local Best Buy or CompUSA and buy Quicken.

The same is true for blogging. There are many online blogging platforms (like blogger or wordpress.com) that can have you up and running in minutes.

If you have the programming skill to use Frontpage, or even DreamWeaver (the former is more commonly used by amateurs, the latter by pros), and you want a completely customized blog (i.e. one that doesn't look like the cookie-cutter ones you can run right out of the box), then go with WordPress.

Go to WordPress.org (not wordpress.com), and download the free software. For anyone with programming savvy, it's easy to install on a Linux-based system. It's an excellent package--just like commercial software, the only difference is, it's free!

Wordpress is essentially the blogging "engine" that takes care of tasks like writing and archiving posts, keeping track of comments, and so on. There are no limits to how you display your blog. Here are two examples. I'm responsible for the American Association of Future Retirees site. Office Arrow is a site for office professionals. Notice how different they are.

But both are WordPress sites. They merely have different "themes." A "theme" is essentially the PHP/HTML code that is used in conjunction with WordPress to display the blog. Google "WordPress themes" and you can find tons of them; one may well meet your needs with little or no custom programming.

You can use DreamWeaver if you wish...

BTW, you can use DreamWeaver (I wouldn't recommend FrontPage) to design a theme. Find an existing theme that is more or less close to what you have in mind. Set up WordPress on your server and install the theme (only takes a few minutes). View your blog in your browser. In your browser, click on "file/save as" and save the Web Page as HTML. (You'll also get a folder full of graphics, CSS sheets, etc. Keep them together!)

You can now edit the HTML in DreamWeaver as you would any other page. Keep careful track of any changes you make. When you've got it the way you want it, make identical changes to the PHP/HTML code of the theme, and voila!, your blog will appear as you want it. To make it easier, you may want to break the code into "templates" that correspond to the php files in the theme (header.php, page.php, footer.php, and so on).

All of this takes some programming expertise... but I'm assuming you have it if you were going to create a blog from scratch, which would be an even more advanced task because it would involve database design in MySQL, security issues, and so on.

Hope this helps... good luck!

Ed Garrison is Executive Director of AAFR