With the explosive popularity of online diaries, there are now many sites dedicated to hosting them. These web-based "diary collectives" require little or no knowledge of HTML, allowing you to have your say with nothing more than an e-mail account or a web browser.

• Blogger
• Dear Diary
• Diarist.com
• Diary-X
• Diarybase.com
• DiaryLand
• eBloggy
• Internet Clubhouse
• Journalspace
• LiveJournal
• My Dear Diary
• My Journal
• Open Diary
• RediffBlogs
• tBlog
• VivaBlog

Free Hosting:
To pop-up or not to pop-up?

If you want more control over your code but don't want to shell out the cash for a commercial webspace provider, try these. Although they're 'free,' there's the little catch of compulsory advertising by banner, pop-up or other means. Special features can include easy uploading, HTML tutorials and help, counters, and guestbooks. For more insight, try Free Web Space.

• Geocities (Yahoo!)
• Angelfire (Lycos)
• Tripod (Lycos)

Commercial Journal Sites:
When your writing is worth it, but coding isn't.

If you want to be free of banner ads, pop ups, and overloaded servers, then you'll need to pay for the privilege. Even so, you might want the powerful content management tools set up for you, rather than having to code everything yourself. These folks come to the rescue!

• TypePad (Movable Type)
• InkNoise

Commercial Hosting:
World-Wide Web, here I come!

So you want to have a place to call your own? Easy enough for the right fee. You need to have a domain name and a webhost, though you can usually get both at one place.

• Dreamhost (Webhosting)
• Dotster (Domain Registration)

Journal Tools:
Making escribitionism as easy as falling off a blog.

If you've got your own webspace, and don't want to get buried in HTML or fuss with FrontPage, "content management systems" give you the ability to just type, click, and go. Running on commonly-available platforms, these tools allow you to update your site in a variety of ways, from almost anywhere.

• Greymatter (CGI, Free)
• Journaling Script (CGI, Free)
• MovableType (CGI, MySQL/DB, Free/$)
• pMachine (PHP, MySQL, $)
• WordPress (PHP, MySQL, Free)