I was very pleased with TypePad. However, because we had a lot of information on our existing website, as well as my old weblog, I decided to see if I could install Movable Type, which is the software predecessor of TypePad. It took me about six hours to get it working so I could log in. This included finding my way around a new web host, copying files from our old host, and and cooking dinner. I wouldn’t recommend the experience to anyone who hadn’t had some experience with Perl and/or Unix and/or SQL.
I exported my posts to the TypePad beta, and imported them into my new weblog with no difficulty. I haven’t yet started to customize the templates and cascading style sheets, because I wanted to get the basic mechanics working first.