Simple, open-source blogging/gallery recommendations

For a site that needs to go up fast

[MatthewHSE]

I just agreed to do a website for free that needs to be done extremely fast. The family is going overseas next month for an extended period of time, and they want the site done before they leave.

Basically, there just needs to be an easy way for them to provide monthly updates on their activities, and a photo gallery. There's more to the site than that, but the rest will be static HTML.

Anyway, I was thinking that some sort of blogging software would be the best for this type of site. As far as I know, many blogging programs also include photo gallery add-ons, so hopefully I can do it all with just one package.

Normally I would do my own homework for this, but on such a tight timeframe I just need recommendations. I've never installed/configured any blogging software and need something that will go quick and easy, and that has a very user-friendly interface for adding blog entries and photos. It also needs to be something that I can install and configure myself - therefore Blogger and other hosted solutions won't work.

Any ideas? Simplicity and customizability are the keys here; somewhat contradictory, I know, but there must be something out there that does a reasonably good job at both of those things. Also, it must be free. I was counting on open-source, but would consider other options as well.

Thanks in advance for any ideas. In the meantime, I'll do some further investigating on my own....

Matthew

[encyclo]

If you're in a real hurry then building something integrated could be a hassle. I would say use Wordpress for the blog - you can get it running within 20 minutes (they say five minutes but that's an exaggeration if you've never done it before). Once it is in place and all working, then you can customize the template at your leisure. It needs one MySQL database.

For the photo album you could use Gallery, but if they will have access to a computer on which they can install software (eg. a laptop or their home machine if they are not on the road), then I like JAlbum, which is a Java-based program which does all the layout in the application offline then they can upload the generated static files.

[PatrickDeese]

You might consider blogger and their picasa software:

[blogger.com...]

you can set up blogger to post to your own domain or use their free hosting.

its very easy and quick.