Visual Studio 6 has been my compiler of choice for Windows development until 2008, when I installed Visual Studio 2008 (VS9), Express Edition, which Microsoft allows to use for just about anything (see Express Editions FAQ). VS6 project files (.dsw and .dsp) were provided with many Open Source projects used in Stone Steps Webalizer (SSW), which also was a nice bonus, as creating projects files from scratch and maintaining them for existing 3rd-party projects is a somewhat laborious and time-consuming process.

I finally decided to start a web log and decided this time around look for an out-of-the-box solution, rather than trying to create one. All I needed was a simple and secure interface, without any unnecessary functionality I would have to audit for security and find ways to disable.

The first surprise was that the search list came back pretty short - about a dozen blogs. Some of these were pretty pricey - (e.g. DMXReady at $199 USD for a single site license) and some just didn't look right. Eventually, a couple of those I looked at caught my attention - Forest Blog, dBlog and Battle Blog and I decided to give them a try.