I have a website, it is my name with .com at the end. I use it to let friends and family know whats going on, put up pics, and occsionally rant about stuff that pisses me off. It is only intended for my friends to look at, and in that repsect it works quite well. I also have a email with my name in it that only my friends get, and it has for the most part been spam free for a few years.
I'm using a php blogging script called Serendipity for the "articles" and a php photo gallery called Coppermine. They work well, but I'm interested in iWeb to see if it can be even easier.
I am afriad to make the jump to .mac though. It is about the same as what I'm paying now, but I'm haven't looked to see if there was a way to still keep my custom URL and email address. I guess I could just have the URL forwarded, but I'm not sure about the email addy.