If you have used the hosted blogging services from Blogger or Wordpress, you may have considered installing the software on your own web hosting account.

Setting up the database and other options is not difficult but it is best to have a go on a local computer rather on a live website.

XAMPP for Windows is an excellent tool for this job and lets you spend time on getting the website looking good, rather than trying to install all the server software.

XAMPP includes the Apache software that runs the webserver along with the MySQL database software. Support for the PHP programming language used by many of the web software such as Wordpress or CMSimple. The PHPMyAdmin software is also included for easy editing of the databases.

XAMPP can be set up to run as a service (so it is always available) or as an ordinary program. The latter is more secure as it means the computer is not hosting the website unless you tell it to.