Fish Sticks and Green Jello

My friend Jenn uses Xanga, so she may have some more tips for me. Here's the issue at hand though... Xanga allows users to add particular users to a list which allows those users the ability to view protected blog entries. Otherwise the average user would see all the rest of the posts with the exception of the ones that had an approved user list.

Here's what Blogger says about that:

How can I password protect my blog?
"We do not currently offer a password protection service for Blog*Spot blogs. However, if you host your blog on your own server you may be able to do this, since many hosting providers include this service. Check with your system administrator for information on how to set it up."

The only bummer about that is that you cannot password protect particular entries. Instead you can only allows users with the password access to your blog. That's not very user friendly.

So, does Xanga allow you to publish via your website? Is there another blog provider or is there blog code to enable this yourself?

You know, Blogger could do this too. You have to register to leave your name with comments and blogger allows you to choose to require everyone to sign in before they comment or just allow anonymous posts. So you could effectively allow only your blogger friends access to certain posts. Blogger is always ten steps behind everyone.

I had to add code to the template and use an outside program to collect comments until they finally added those. The repercussions of that is that now, I keep the old comment system around so I don't lose those comments and the old posts from way back when don't have blogger comments enabled on them automatically. Once they added the new comment system it wasn't backwards post compatible. If you want a really old post to have comments you have to dig up that old post, allow comments on it and republish it. Considering I have hundreds of posts that seems like a huge waste of time.

Frustrating! I used to have two blogs, one private and one public but that was a pain as well. I'm really getting tired of censoring everything I write here though. I'd like to have some things I can write about that just vent at times without having to worry about the ramifications of those posts. Just recently I had to archive a bunch of posts for exactly that reason. It just bugs me though because there are definitely certain rules I abide by when blogging. I don't blog about work, I really truly try not to name names when writing negative posts (initials anyone?) and I don't post personal info such as email addys, phone numbers, addresses etc.

I get the most visits when I write dramatic posts, yet I can't leave them up because they're inflamatory. But when I read other blogs do you think I really want to read about how nice and normal and blah everything is? People love the drama! They like to think they're being let in on something personal and they find ways to connect with that. You know what? I write this blog as much for me as anyone else. I like being able to write and maybe connect with people on common ground, start an interesting dialogue, let people know about something entertaining etc. It's a way for me to get out what I'm doing or thinking about as much as it is a way for people to read about what I'm up to. It's therapeutic for me really.

I'm just frustrated right now. It IS a good question though.