iWeb

How much processor power does it take to host a website from my mac? will it slow me down a lot? I have an iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 3.06 GHz and 4 GB ram. I want to host a blog, and in all honesty I think my traffic will be very very low. Will I notice a decrease in performance?

Also, are there security dangers that I should be concerned about hosting a live web site on my personal computer? I have a router with a firewall and the firewall on the imac also.

With little traffic, not a lot. But you do need to check with your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to find out whether they allow servers that host public Internet content. In many cases, that comes with an extra fee as you'll need a public, static IP address.

You're better off just finding a free web hosting service (there are many of them). Or see if your ISP offers you an FTP account. If so, all you need is a domain name and you can upload your page to your FTP account, assuming you know its address.

I'm considering hosting my own so that it's cheaper (only have to pay $10 a year for the domain), and also so that I can play with the back end more just to figure out how things work. I'm in university housing so I get their internet, I don't think that I will have an FTP available but I'm not sure

This will almost certainly be illegal on the campus network, and as mentioned you'll need a static IP address. I second CWA's advice.