A blog is a kind of website – (for the purposes of these reviews) one that is maintained by an individual. It’s not an article. It’s not a static HTML page (though these can be incorporated into a blog). It’s a log of web pages: a web log = a blog. Anyone can have one for any reason they want: personal, professional, job hunting, family chronicle, marketing, book clubs, celebrity gossip, tech news, online diary, fashion do’s, fashion don’ts, dream journal, music, art, recipes, travel – anything you want.

For the purpose of focus, this set of product reviews looks mostly at blog software for the blog beginner. If you have enough technical experience to download and manage your own database, visit Advanced Blog Software for a sub-category of free and paid programs offering quite a bit more options than you will get with even the best easy programs.

All blog software reviewed here, well all blog software full-stop, supports the writing, editing, and publishing of your entries in this format:

* Title: this is the main headline of your post which also comprises parts of the permalink.
* Body: this is the main content/body of text, photos, etc. of the post.
* Permalink: this is the full URL of each individual blog post.
* Post Date: date and time stamp reflecting when the post was published.

Comments, trackbacks and tags/categories are all considered added features.
What to Look For in Blog Software

Here are the criteria we used to evaluate the many features offered by blog software:

Design Tools
Templates, plugins, text editors, spell check functions and the like are all examined in-depth for each product. Whether or not the software lets you preview before posting, compatible file types the program will work with, remote post capabilities, navigation/sidebar options and more are also explored for each program.

Tracking/Publishing Tools
These are the ways that your software alerts search engines and blog search engines that you have posted something new. If you are using your blog to promote your business in any way, your software needs to have some kind of RSS or Atom output – these allow software independent of your blog to keep a running summary of your posts for feeders and aggregate services. Tracking tools are vital to monitoring who is looking at your site and when and for how long. Again, if you are using your blog for any kind of marketing tool, access to the traffic statistics is an important part of navigating the success of your blog.

Ease of Use
The Ease of Use category looks at how easy it is sign up, obtain a blog and begin blogging. We also looked at install time if you are paying to host your own site or blog.

Software/Hosting
Software and hosting are two elements that might seem confusing if you’re just getting into the blog thing, but deciding what you need in a blog begins here. If you want a blog, you’re going to need a place on the Internet for it to be hosted, a place where your blog lives in the vast net-ography of the Internet. There are four main options from which to choose. You can go the entirely free route: free software and free hosting. All this free-ness is great and probably adequate if you just want somewhere online to write down your dreams so your friends can interpret them. But if you are selling a product (your writing, solar panels, handbags, whatever) you’re going to need lots of space (hosting) and features (software). The second option is free software and paid hosting, followed by paid software with hosting including and finally, paid software and paid hosting. We’ll delve deeper into this subject in our companion article, Free Vs Paid Blog Software or Why It Pays to Pay.

Tech Support/Help
When you’re lost and stuck with your blog software it really counts if someone or something is there for you. For each product reviewed we also reviewed the array of FAQs, knowledge base, tutorials, forums, etc that you will have access to if and when you use the program. All blog software can be categorized in a few ways: user-hosted, developer-hosted, free and open source, and proprietary. Some of these types co-mingle, but we have reviewed examples of developer-hosted and proprietary software so you can choose the best, easiest option for your own blog. Because ultimately the best software for your blog is the program with all the features you need to get the job done.

The footprints of Microsoft’s software empire are visible in nearly every aspect of our lives—from Windows on our desktop computers to Netflix on our Xbox 360 consoles to Bill Gates on our televisions. Our “TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award” winner represents one of Microsoft’s most ubiquitous and widely used programs in the world. You’d have to have been living in a cave for the last two decades to have avoided writing a document or two on Microsoft Word or compiling a budget on Excel. After comparing Microsoft Office Home and Student to other leading home office software suites we can understand why it’s so popular. Microsoft’s home user and student focused edition of Office is the most reliable and feature rich productivity suite we reviewed.

Standout features

• Microsoft Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007
• One license is good for installation on three computers
• Hundreds of free document, spreadsheet and slideshow templates available
• Note taking application

• Word Processing Features:
• Microsoft Office Home and Student includes Microsoft Word. Word does not need an introduction—the word processor is running in offices, homes, small businesses and dorm rooms all over the world. Word 2007, however, has been retooled and equipped with new features for the Office 2007 suite. Its interface has been reorganized to be more intuitive and includes useful tools for specific document styles such as letters, academic papers, blogs, etc.In contrast to other word processors, Word’s interface is much more dynamic. The program responds to the look and structure of your document and suggests actions you are likely to need. For example, if you click on the bottom or top margin of the page, you’ll see an option to insert a header or footer pop up. Microsoft Word also has a preview mode running in real time so you can see what formatting changes will look like before you commit to them.One of the most impressive extras included with Microsoft Word is the vast archive of templates available for download directly through Word itself. You can find hundreds of templates for professional grade resumes, cover letters, budget sheets, attendance sheets and just about any other useful document type imaginable.
• Additional Software:
• Microsoft Office Home and Student also includes the well-known spreadsheet and presentation programs, Excel and PowerPoint. Excel and PowerPoint round out the office suite by adding more advanced productivity tools. Excel 2007 is capable of advanced operations typical of the chemistry lab or physics lecture hall. PowerPoint is increasingly used by lecturers and employers to distribute materials. As is the case with Word, Excel and PowerPoint both give users access to a wealth of useful template downloads.Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 does not include the email client Outlook, which is typically not necessary for home or student use anyway. Instead, it offers a useful note taking program called OneNote. OneNote is a generic application that allows you to store and organize useful information of a few different types. You can catalogue text, images, video, audio, links and common files for later retrieval and use with OneNote. Students will be particularly fond of OneNote.
• Compatibility:
• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 does not support many third party file formats. This is particularly a concern with the increasingly popular OpenOffice format. We can understand the commercial motives for not supporting open source and competing file formats, but find it inconvenient none-the-less. Despite its comparative lack of support for other widely used formats, most users don’t typically deal with other formats for spreadsheets, documents and presentations. The fact that Microsoft has a near monopoly with its DOC, XLS and PPS file formats ultimately means that you won’t have to think about formats much at all. In the event that you need to open and edit items that Microsoft Office does not support, there are free, light weight converters available online.We like working with Microsoft Office 2007 applications simply because there is no hassle opening, editing and saving documents and spreadsheets. The one possible hitch concerns the updated Office 2007 file formats. If you’re sending 2007 formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPSX, etc.) to users that only have Microsoft Office 2003 they’re likely to encounter errors and difficulty. In general, this is a minor concern as Office 2007 formats saturate the market.
• User Support:
• It’s not hard to find complaints about Microsoft’s customer support, but in reality we were impressed with their support staff. There’s really not much reason to contact help staff directly however, because Microsoft Office’s online community and library of FAQs, forums and documentation address every conceivable technical, licensing and user issue. While Microsoft’s support resources are vast and thorough, the fact that updates, add-ons and support often require a Windows Live account can be irritating to new users.
• Summary:
• Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 is a substantial improvement over the 2003 edition. It’s also a great standalone product. We love the interface, templates and usability of the retooled Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The price runs higher than competing office software suites, but given the omnipresence of Microsoft Office, superior functionality and solid customer support included with a purchase, we had no difficulty selecting the renowned set of programs for our top position.

Image Clock for Palm OS is an attractive Image-based Analog clock that, unlike most Palm Clocks,

combines the image and clock effectively without the clock face covering up the majority of the image. The clock comes with a Default Image Pack of 10 sample images and is designed to have any number of Image packs added to it.

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Vocabulary relating to food and enjoyment. Between 50,000 and 150,000 entries in total, consisting of culinary terms + basic and supplementary vocabulary as Freeware.

Specific user data can be viewed separately in the user dictionary or together with the original data in the dictionary. Taking into account the new German spelling rules. Such entries are specially marked. Ideal for foreign trips and to make the acquaintance of the local culinary specialities. Extract from our “Goldversion” with over 600.000 entries from one language combination!

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FREE Snooker Stats add-on for Palm and Pocket PC DEPReader application includes a list of the players in the 2004/2005 Main and Challenge Tours in Snooker after the World Championship.
Find out who’s who in today’s snooker and learn facts about the best snooker players’ achievements, tournament victories and more.

Goes with FREE DEPReader – dictionary and encyclopedia personal reader.

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We all knew him, some of us grew with his music, others saw him growing and filling their life with his songs. Now Michael Jackson is gone and the hearts of his fans will be broken for a long time.

The only thing that will fill the hole he created when leaving our world is his music and the memories that will remain in our minds. With this new IQ mobile application, you can now keep Michael Jackson forever in your mobile phone. You can remember any time you’re sad about the happy moments you spent on your idol’s music. He’s not here anymore, but his music will live forever.

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Your mobile/cell phone is no longer just for making calls to local friends.
Meet friends and make new ones, down the road & across the globe.

Join mig33 mobile chat. FREE to join & chat on mobile chat rooms, MSN & Yahoo messenger. Improved voice services & see rates before you make a call on the mobile. Free credits to try. Buy more credits to make cheap overseas calls & SMS. Refer friends & earn free credits of AUD$1 for each new member.

On your mobile, mig33 requires Java and a connection to the mobile Internet. Unicode is supported. Chat in English, Arabic, Chinese and other languages. mig33 is compatible with Java MIDP1.0, MIDP 2.0 versions and Symbian phones.

New & improved features (mig33 v2):
• Make improved overseas voice calls at competitive calling card rates
• See call rates on the mobile before you connect
• Connect to Yahoo messenger
• Create chat rooms & kick users from chat rooms
• Share your credits with other users, by pushing credits to them.
• Refer friends & earn free credits of AUD$1 for each new member
• Send referrals to North American users

Simply download mig33 to your mobile, register and log in.
Look out for more new features coming soon.