Wednesday, May 4th, 2005
Other Hosting Sites ?
Well this sucks big monkey balls. My friend who lives in China tells me she cannot access my damn blog here at blogger (affiliated/owned by google). Also she cannot even sign up for a gmail account (some of her friends in China do have gmail accounts, but for some reason, she can’t access the gmail site while they can). Apparently some (regional?) government sector/ISP has blocked certain sites. What’s up with that - I mean, censoring blogger and gmail / google? She points out, google is available sporadically… Weird.
Can YOU live without google???
Is this communism at work? Or just some regional dumb ass who decided they don’t like anything google-related?
I lived there until I was 12 years old. As a twelve-year old, you just don’t notice a whole lot about the real/outside world. You have your family and you have your friends at school, that’s all that matters. All rules I observed were set by my parents. And since we did not have the luxury of television or afford whatever else for us to have “outside contact”, what I saw was all that I knew. I did not feel repressed or my voice muffled. Well I take that back, I was repressed and my voice was muffled often, but that’s not because I was living in a communist country. It was because I was a 12-year old and 12-year-olds just don’t get a lot of freedom in general! Especially if you have very protective parents and you’re a girl!!!
So this could very well be communism at work. But then how do you explain that some of her friends, who also live in China, have gmail and google??? (Please note, I do NOT wish to engage in political debates right now).
Anyhow, where was I?
Yes. I would really like my friend to be able to visit my blog. And I’m cheap, so I’m not buying membership at Typepad. Can any of you suggest some blog sites that are user-friendly, RSS-capable, ability to modify your own template/blog look, and most importantly, FREE? I did check out a few blog sites but haven’t found one that I really like.
Thanks in advance!
on Wednesday, May 4th, 2005 at 7:40 pm:
I briefly looked at http://www.blogspirit.com/en/index.php which looks as thought it has a premium options as well as free and there’s always good old livejournal.com.
I think searching for free blog service might get you started but I don’t know how good some of the newer ‘free’ services are.
Hope things are well!
on Thursday, May 5th, 2005 at 3:06 pm:
I think diaryland has free and paid hosting. I have no idea if they do RSS.
on Thursday, May 5th, 2005 at 4:40 pm:
Xanga has free and paid hosting also.
on Thursday, May 5th, 2005 at 5:53 pm:
Very interesting. I can’t help you at all about the free site thing. As you can see, I am still stuck w/blogger too. But since I will be adopting a baby girl (maybe two!) from China soon, I would absolutely love to hear more about how you grew up.
on Friday, May 6th, 2005 at 9:39 pm:
I’m off to check out these hosting sites. Thanks everyone! I hope I find one that will work.
amyesq - I emailed you once or twice at your FC @hotmail.com address. I didn’t hear back from you. Hmm.
on Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 at 11:49 am:
S - I emailed you from my hotmail acct to yours! I hope you got it.
on Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 at 12:49 pm:
Sorry ameyesq!
My hotmail account is only used for MSN messenger purposes. I don’t actually check it, and they de-activated the account itself long ago (to keep it active, one must log in once a month..)
Anyone who’d like to contact me via email, please use my gmail account. Thanks!