Question

I'd like to start a blog and I know Blogger and WordPress are popular tools for doing so. However, I am reluctant to use them, because my content is stored on an external server that I don't control. I already own some webspace and a domain, so want to put my blog there. Regrettably, my webserver doesn't support server-side scripting, which is needed for the typical blogging software.

What I want is a tool that renders a collection of HTML pages from my texts, resulting in a site similar to a normal blogs, so I can synchronize this over FTP. Does anyone know of such tools? And which are the drawbacks compared to online blog services?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thingamablog

Thingamablog is a cross-platform, standalone blogging application that makes authoring and publishing your weblogs almost effortless. Unlike most blogging solutions, Thingamablog does NOT require a third-party blogging host, a cgi/php enabled web host, or a MySQL database. In fact, all you need to setup, and manage, a blog with Thingamablog is FTP, SFTP, or network access to a web server.

http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/

Answer 2

You can have a look at HiSlain

HiSlain - Static Blog Publishing System

Installation

1. Use easy_install hislain to install the app
2. Clone http://github.com/yuvipanda/yuvisense.net
3. Remove the posts/, pages/ and out/ folders
4. Modify blog.yaml to suit your blog's preferences
5. Write your posts in posts/. Use the current posts from yuvisense.net repo as reference
6. Run hislain /path/to/folder/containing/blog.yaml/ to generate the out/ files
7. Copy the out/ folder to your web host

If Java is supported, you could have a look at Pebble

Pebble seems to be what you need:

Pebble is a lightweight, open source, Java EE blogging tool. It's small, fast and feature-rich with unrivalled ease of installation and use. Blog content is stored as XML files on disk and served up dynamically, so there's no need to install a database.

Content

* Posting and management of content through your web browser, including rich text editor support.
* Blogger and MetaWeblog API interface included for posting content via compatible tools.
* Categorisation of content into multiple hierarchical categories.
* Tagging of content and a generation of a tagcloud.
* RSS enclosures for distributing files or podcasting.
* Pinging websites via XML-RPC when new blog entries are added.
* Link to your favorite social bookmarking site

Reader responses

* Reader responses, in the form of threaded comments and MovableType TrackBacks.
* E-mail notifications when new responses are received.
* Pluggable moderation, spam detection and CAPTCHA support.
* Bulk response management features to approve/reject/remove comments and TrackBacks.

Pebble uses the following technologies

• Java
• JavaServer Pages
• JSP Standard Tag Library
• Java Servlets
• Acegi Security System for Spring
• Spring
• Apache Lucene
• Jakarta Commons
• Apache XML-RPC
• Radeox

Answer 3

Your webhost doesn't support PHP or connecting from Blogger? Or does it not allow database connections (which would be required for Wordpress)?

With Blogger, you can update your blog to your domain via FTP or SFTP.

Outside of that, it looks like you'd need to write your own HTML pages and upload them, adding navigation by hand (yuck!).

Answer 4

The JavaScript Blog System

The JavaScript Blog System, or "JSBlog" for short, is a JavaScript program that allows you to create a blog ("weblog") without complex web scripts such as PHP.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jsblog/

Answer 5

To round out some of the answers posted here: you could also use a TiddlyWiki as a blog. You can edit the file locally and FTP the changes up.

Its not quite as convenient as something hosted on a server as you can't just edit it wherever you happen to be (with internet access, natch), but its not that hard to set up and keep up once you get it going.

Answer 6

I am in the exact same situation as you are, and I would heartily recommend getting a Blogger account set up (you can use a Google account to set it up).

Blogger allows me to have a completely dynamic blogging experience, and all the heavy script lifting is done by Blogger on its own servers. Then all you have to do is instruct it to place the files in an FTP directory of your own choice (obviously).

You can very easily customise the design, post layout, pagination, and so on from the Blogger website. You also write new posts using the Blogger site, or else using your favourite blog authoring tool (mine being WLW).

I personally found Blogger by far the easiest way to set up my own blog. No scripting needed!