There were several reasons. But basically, I'm a cheap, lazy, old, curmudgeon.

First, I tried using a few PHP-based Blog engines: Wordpress Multi, Drupal, and something else I can no longer remember ... Since I'm cheap, I was trying to use "free" hosting sites. There are a few. WordPress was free, and since I wanted to have multiple Blogs, I decided Wordpress Multi was probably the best choice. There are a lot of themes. A couple were close enough to the "theme" of each my blogs that I could choose something for each. But the free hosting sites didn't really seem to like letting me put Amazon links in. There were plug-ins for Google Ads, but not for Amazon. Since, I'm also lazy, or more accurately, keenly aware of how much effort I am willing to exert for a given benefit (I am a contract progarmmer,  paid hourly), and didn't want to invest the time to invent a new plug-in in a language in which I am a newbie, I decided to research something else in more familiar territory.

.NET open source options (at the time) seemed to be restricted to SubText (.Text was defunct), and dasBlog. I decided on SubText, because dasBlog is file based and that just seemed to me to present potential future performance issues. Also, SubText seemed more mature, with more people supporting it, and it used MS SQL Server. Back to the "cheap" issue again; my hosting provider for my primary site, www.sa-consult.com, only provides me with one MS SQL Server database as part of my monthly fee. Since I could install the SubText tables seamlessly in my existing database, it seemed like a good choice. Back to the lazy issue, I just found it too difficult to develop a suitable theme for this site. I was able to do it, but it just seemed like a pain in the **s. Also, I seemed to be unable to get it to use subdomains the way that I wanted to use them.

So, somehow, I found BlogEngine.NET. And I really like it! It uses XML files natively (like dasBlog), but unlike dasBlog (or at least the version I was researching), it supports multiple blogs in one installation, uses subdomains without jumping through hoops, seems to have permalinks and clean URL's for SEO, and has providers for both MS SQL and MySql server.  The installation anywhere for the XML version seems to take about 5 minutes, and the instructions are easy to follow. I was able to create a theme (from an existing one), in about 2-3 hours, and another in about 1 hour. It uses Master pages. It's a bit short on plug-in's at this point, but I expect this to improve.

As for the curmudgeon issue: this product serves my needs quite easily. The curmudgeon in me likes that. I have several other curmudgeonly blogs: theSpiritualCurmudgeon, and theAmericanCurmudgeon. One is already converted to BlogEngine, and the other soon will be.

I highly suggest you take a look at it! (As well as my other Blogs ...)

If you see this post it means that BlogEngine.NET 1.3 is running and the hard part of creating your own blog is done. There is only one thing you need to do from this point on to take full advantage of the blog and that is to set up the first author profile.

Write Permissions

To be able to log in to the blog and writing posts, you need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder. If you’re blog is hosted at a hosting provider, you can either log into your account’s admin page or call the support. You need write permissions on the App_Data folder because all posts and comments are saved as XML files and placed in the App_Data folder.

Username and password

When you've got write permissions to the App_Data folder, you need to change the username and password. Find the sign-in link located either at the bottom or top of the page depending on your current theme and click it. Now enter "admin" in both the username and password fields and click the button. You will now see an admin menu appear. It has a link to the "Users" admin page. From there you can change the username and password.

On the web

You can find BlogEngine.NET on the official website. Here you'll find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more. The ongoing development of BlogEngine.NET can be followed at CodePlex where the daily builds will be published for anyone to download.

Good luck and happy writing.

The BlogEngine.NET team