I decided to make the support site a blog to demonstrate the sort of thing a student could easily create, whether to support a particular project, publicise a research programme, or just act as an online portfolio.

How much work does it take to set up a site like this?

1. The domain cost me $0.89 a year to register (there was a special on .info at GoDaddy).
2. Signing up with a host (the nice folks at LivingDot) took ten minutes and a day for them to set everything up. They charge USD $10.95 a month.
3. Starting this WordPress blog took another ten minutes. The theme, Fazyvo 1.4 by noonnoo, was free and took just a minute to download and install. I had to do a quick Google for help on what my hostname was (localhost, it turned out). Another ten minutes to add the light bulb graphic to the banner. And I was ready to start adding content.