Hi whonu,
I don't know if this will help solve your problem, because there are some big limitations to the blog module which you may be facing such as the inability for a user to have more than one blog and the inability on a specific tab to allow different groups or users have access to different lists of blogs.
These limitations notwithstanding, I believe you may be able to achieve what you need. Let's say you want a single user to have their own blog, where all you see on the tab where there blog is included is their blog and any child blogs the user has created. Here's how you would achieve that using the DNN Blog module:
- Add blog to tab - Create a tab and add the blog module. All the blogs will appear initially.
- Set permissions for user - Set the permissions as DonF mentioned above.
- Provision new blog - Either have the user log in and create their blog or log in for the user and create the blog.
- Restrict blog list to new blog - After the blog has been created for or by the user, configure the blog to show blog entries for just this blog. This is achieved by an admin or host clicking on the Module options page of what DonF called the Poll module above. It's the module which actaully lists the blog entries. When I privision a blog, I usually create a single test blog entry which makes it easy to see this module. It's also the top module by default. Under Module Options, you'll set to the personal blog page to the blog you created.
The one thing I know you won't be able to achieve is to also have a second tab which does not show the personal blog you just configured. Any blog modules added to tabs where the Personal Blog Page option is not configured will show all public blogs, and as you have mentioned, setting a blog to private just makes the blog invisible to visitors to your site.
We may add the ability for multiple people to post to a blog module in a product we created called metaPost (you can see our site for details), but I know that digNuke offers a module which provides this functionality today. One drawback to allow multiple accounts to post to a single blog is that the blog module's data structure doesn't support a way to associate user id's with an entry. This means that while multiple authors may be able to post to a single blog, the blog will always show the user to which the blog is associated as the author of the blog entry.
Another solution to your problem would be to use the Ventrian News Articles module. Don't let the name fool you. The news article supports pingbacks and trackbacks and other features needed when implementing a blog module solution for an organization. We'll be releasing a provider soon for the News Articles module which will allow you to post to your news articles blogs from Windows Live Writer!
HTH,
Don