Just stumbled on this post from "The Rabid Paladin." I wanted to clarify to a few things that he brings up in the post.
The front-runners in the .NET space for blogging software appear to be SubText and DasBlog--both are branches from their progenitor .Text which appears to be defunct. Unfortunately, since .Text was originally ASP.NET 1.1, both SubText and DasBlog are rooted in that technology. They both support custom themes, but they had to hack ASP.NET 1.1 to do so--mostly with custom controls.
DasBlog is a ongoing fork from BlogX, not .Text. Neither SubText nor DasBlog are "rooted" in ASP.NET 1.1 (not sure how one would root in a particular version of ASP.NET), both run happily under 2.0 and both have 'more native' 2.0 versions in development. DasBlog's theming isn't based on custom controls, it's a Radio Userland-style macro language so Mort can write his or her own themes without coding. It's true that there's lots of ways to architect themes and skins, including, but not limited to, the built in ASP.NET 2.0 theming.
I was originally drawn more to DasBlog because I've become a fan of Scott Hanselman--first from his podcasts, Hanselminutes, but later to his blog (which actually uses DasBlog, kudos for eating the dinner you've made). He's one of those over-producers who seems to have his hand in on fifteen million things at a time and is able to simultaneously talk about it all. However, DasBlog's main website is frequently down, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of action in the form of improvements, releases, news, or updates. Which makes me wonder if it isn't a dying product, suffering from Scott's hyper interests.
I was originally drawn more to DasBlog because I've become a fan of Scott Hanselman--first from his podcasts, Hanselminutes, but later to his blog (which actually uses DasBlog, kudos for eating the dinner you've made). He's one of those over-producers who seems to have his hand in on fifteen million things at a time and is able to simultaneously talk about it all.
However, DasBlog's main website is frequently down, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of action in the form of improvements, releases, news, or updates. Which makes me wonder if it isn't a dying product, suffering from Scott's hyper interests.
Thanks for the kind words about the podcast! Our DasBlog website has been down occasionally because it's run from the basement of a very kind volunteer, but it being down shouldn't necessarily reflect poorly on the hard work the team has done.
We do have two sites:
On the "not a lot of action" point, I'm a little surprised by that. Have you read my blog over the last 6 months? There's a lot of activity: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/CategoryView.aspx?category=DasBlog
We're just releasing 1.9 soon, we've got daily builds every day, we've added literally dozens of (we think) cutting edge features (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/UpcomingDasBlog19.aspx) and are working on the roadmap for the .NET Framework 3.0 version.
And I stress we - There's an active group of a dozen or so contributors who are continuing to make DasBlog a great platform. It's not just me.
Here's a post on how to contribute to a project like DasBlog. Since the 'how to patch' post, dozens of patches have been added, many bug fixed. We also ship with 23 themes to choose from and more are on the way. The team is more active now then it's ever been and we're looking forward to the future.
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. I am a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in any way.