Here’s the info on my server setup for those who are interested:

Hardware:

Dell Optiplex gx150 PIII 866MHz/256MB/40GB
network adapter: Atmel AT76503a-based USB WLAN adapter

Software:

*OS:* Windows Server 2003
*web server:* “XAMPP”:http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. This package provides integrated Apache http server (2.2.0), php, mySQL, FTP, mail, and a bunch of other services.
*CMS(Content Management System):* “textpattern”:http://www.textpattern.com. From what I’ve seen textpattern is quite a bit more robust and capable than WordPress, since it’s a complete CMS system instead of just a blogging tool.
*remote administration:* Remote Desktop. This allows me to access and administer my server remotely at school or elsewhere, which is really handy. It also lets me run my server without a monitor, keyboard, or mouse. For non-Windows machines I’m also set up with “VNC Server”:http://www.realvnc.com/ but I don’t use VNC universally because it’s quite a bit slower than RD.
*DNS:* I don’t have a domain name yet (obviously). I’m planning on finding a DDNS service sometime in the next few days.

Let me know what you think.