First!

I've pulled the trigger and bought my own domain. Now I just have to work out what to put on here.

Some things I've learnt in the process:

• Google do the cheapest secure domain registration. It'll cost you US$10 to buy your domain, and it comes with the proxy registration so you won't get spammed.
• You can then use Google Apps for Your Domain to get free email. The other features -- Docs and Sites -- aren't really worth worrying about. I made a basic homepage in Sites as a placeholder until I figure out what to put there.
• For hosting your blog, your choices are basically wordpress.com or Blogger. Wordpress has beautiful themes, but charge $10 a year for pointing your domain at it. Blogger doesn't charge anything for using your own domain, and you can write your own template for it.

Now the challenge is to maintain this so I don't add to the alarmingly high percentage of inactive blogs...