Saturday 17 May 2008

Posting on your Blog

Go to blogger.com and sign on with your email address and password and you should arrive at your blogger dashboard.

Where it says Manage Your Posts click on New Post under the blog you want to post on.

Make sure that the tab selected is Compose and not Edit Html.

Write the title of the post in the title field.

Write the text content of the post in the main box.

And fill in the labels for the post at the bottom, separated by commas,

These labels are important, as they are what the search engine sees and later on when you have a lot of posts, they will make it possible to navigate your blog.

Add any links to other blogs or conventional websites, you will find some web pages can’t be linked to because they are not written in conventional html but in one of the other more esoteric web writing languages.

To add a link open your browser (probably internet explorer) again, so you don’t interfere with what you are doing on blogger.com.

Get up the webpage you want to link to and copy its website address (at the top of the webpage starts http).

Get up the blogger posting form and type what you want the link to read, something like click here read about blogs and blogging on a normal webpage

Highlight the text that you want to be the link click on the link button on the screen (it looks like a picture of a small green pea with an even smaller paperclip above it) and paste the website address into the box that appears, don’t forget to delete http from the box so that it doesn’t appear twice.

Then click on publish your post and then on view blog to see if you have done it ok, if you haven’t you can go to edit posts on your blogger dashboard and change it.

Friday 16 May 2008

Blogs and blogging for beginners creating a blog

On your blogger dashboard click on create a blog, or if you already have a blog but want to do some of the following things to it, next to Manage click settings, and miss out the next paragraph.

Fill in the form that comes up, with the name of your blog, the web address of your blog, with the web address you may have to fiddle about a bit to find one that’s available. And the word verification, which is to stop machines making blogs as well as people.

You then go to a page where you chose a template, this is the basic background look of your blog, it doesn’t matter which one you chose as you can change it later.

You then come the page where you control this blog you can always get back there by clicking on New Post under the blogs name on the blogger dashboard.

Next make it as easy as you can for people to post on it, you can always make it more difficult later if you get any problems like spam or malicious comments.

Click on the settings tab and then click on the comments tab, next to who Can Comment? dot Anyone, next to Show word Verification For Comments? Dot No then go to the bottom of the page and click on SAVE CHANGES.

You also need to put some links to other blogs on your site, there are two reasons for this first the search engines like pages with links on, and if you want the other blogs you comment on to direct people to your blog, you need to direct people to theirs, tit for tat.

So next click on the layout tab, then on add a page element, where it says Link list click on ADD TO BLOG in the title field type a suitable title on Thanetonline blog it’s “Local Blogs”

Open your browser (probably internet explorer) again so you don’t interfere with what you are doing to your blog, and go to a blog you want to add a link for. Highlight and copy the name of the blog get up the page (Click on the tab for it at the bottom of your screen) where you are adding the blogs link to your blog and paste it in, where it says New Site Name. Get up the blog you are adding again and copy the website address, this is at the top of the web page and starts http, get up the page where you are adding the blogs link to your blog and paste it in, where it says New Site URL, it already has http:// which you need to delete so it doesn’t appear twice and click on save changes, repeat the process to add more links to other blogs.

Blogs and blogging for beginners getting your blogger dashboard

First I should point out this is free and doesn’t cost you anything.This is my second posting on the subject and is for those of you who wish to get into the driving seat and start your own blog, or wish to join blogger to prevent other people maliciously using their identity.Before joining blogger you will need to work out what name you want to use for yourself as this will appear as when you post on other blogs, you also need to decide on what email address you want to use. This is very important if you wish to hide your true identity and you may need to get a hotmail or other free email address before you start.The name you use for yourself is the one that appears in your blogger profile and doesn’t need to be the same as the name of your blog, indeed you can have a number of blogs all using your chosen name.I have 2 blogs http://thanetonline.blogspot.com/, which is my main blog and http://michaelsbookshop.blogspot.com/, which I occasionally play with, but is pointless.You then go to blogger.com and sign up following the instructions which are all fairly straightforward.After having done this when you go to blogger.com and sign on you go to your own blogger dashboard where you can do various things.One final thing in the sign in box your username is your email address.

Blogs and blogging for beginners

I was talking to a savvy 20 something earlier and she said, “what’s a blog?” well I suppose we all get caught up in our own little world, oddly enough the secondhand book world is very internet orientated and interlinked, so secondhand booksellers for the most part have been using the internet for a very long time.Certainly 10 years ago we had 12,000 books listed on the internet and people asking me what the internet was, never came as a surprise.Anyway it occurred to me that I ought to put simple instructions on how to post below. If any of you notice anything important I have missed please let me know.

A blog is a website that anyone can add text to when they visit it.

Here's how to do it.

Each item in the blog is called a post

Under each post there is a link that says 0 comments or a number followed by comments.
Click on this link and page will appear with any comments left by anyone else and a box that you can write your own comments in.

Write your comment.

You can either comment anonymously by clicking in the circle by Anonymous.
A dot will appear in the circle, you then click on PUBLISH YOUR COMMENT and that's it done.
Or you can include your name and website if you have one, by clicking in the circle by Name/URL

A dot will appear in the circle, and a space for your name and URL of your website if you have one, fill the space, you then click on PUBLISH YOUR COMMENT and that's it done.

If you join blogger.com you can post under your preferred identity, this prevents any malicious person from pretending to be you and making it appear that you have said something you haven't.