Blogging is all about keeping an online diary, but can also
be about joining a community of people with similar
interests.
Have you got a particular interest?
eg… photography
gardening
rock climbing, etc.
If so, you could search for blogs on the subject in Google,
for instance, you could put the word photoblog into Google
> Search … and you’ll end up with a list of 15 million
references to look at.
When you’ve found a blogsite that you like, you could then
save it in your Favourites column
WHY BLOG?Keeping a personal diary
.... possibly for friends & family to see,
or for the wider blogging community
to see (and comment on).
How personal/private should you make it?
Use a pseudonym (& no photos of yourself)?
(..so family or former work colleagues won’t read
about what you think of them)
Running a business, eg using a blogsite to display your
paintings or photos, and to talk about them & the
techniques you use?
Improving your writing or web design skills,
or just having a bit of fun?
Why bother keeping an online diary?Future generations might read a handwritten diary with interest
... but would they bother to read an old blog? Will your blog
exist in 50 years’ time, after your death?
Critics may say: “blogging’s pointless”, or “I can’t be
bothered to read about the boring life of a nonentity”, or
“Get a life!”
Several ways of setting up a blogsite …
Blogger is free to use and is a good one, but it has some
limitations in its layout.
Wordpress is another service you
can use free of charge as regards the design, but requires
a lot of work and technical knowledge to set one up. Also
you’d have to pay for “hosting” of your website (which
costs around £35+ a year)and ideally a domain name too.
The latter would cost you an additional £5+ a year.
GETTING STARTED WITH BLOGGERPut the word Blogger into Google and search & click on
the link to it. You will now be on an entry page for
Blogger, which invites you to ...
Take a tour showing you how to set a blog up, in 3
easy steps … do this
Sign (log) in, if you have an existing blog, and you
wish to carry on blogging
Sign up straightaway for Blogger - ”Create Your Blog Now”
The three steps ….
Step1.
Create a Google account for yourselfIf you’ve already got a Googlemail email address, you could
sign up for a new blogsite using this email address.
The form is easy to fill in.
You have to have an existing email account to set Blogger up.
Blogger will let you know how “strong” your password is
(How difficult it would be for someone to guess what it is).
Your
display name … each blog entry will be signed with this
name.
Word Verification … important to stop the spammers from
accessing Blogger.
Step 2. Choose a name for your blogIf you were to choose a word like
simplesimon,
do a Google search for this word to see if anyone else
is using it.You will see that lots of people are using
this name, including businesses, so you shouldn’t use it.
Just imagine what would happen if you were to incorporate
a name like Microsoft into your blog title.
Google search for :
simple0007 … someone’s using that one already
simply0007 …. ditto
pure0007 …. already in use
ifonly0007 …. not in use, but someone’s using ifonly007
simplynot0007 …. not in use … Well, it is now. :)
So fill in the form for choosing your name.
Blogger will let you know if someone else is already
using it.
Jot down all these details on a piece of paper,
especially your full blog address (your URL), which
starts as http://...
and an encrypted version of your email address &
password. You’ll be using all these from time to time.
You will get an email through from Google soon, which
will ask you to verify your new Google account.
Step no. 3 - choose a template (one of Blogger’s designs)You’ve got 16 to choose from …
I prefer the first one ..
MINIMA.
I think it’s easier to change the appearance of this.
Click on “Preview Template” below the design, to see if
it suits you.
Next page: you will get a welcoming message from Blogger,
saying your blog has been created, and inviting you to
post your first blog.
The Posts page is the control centre for your blog.From here you will be able to …
... add text & photos, and publish or edit your posts.
... tweak the template … eg change the colour of the font.
... change the Settings for privacy, comments, & the time,
etc.
... view your blog plus the Help section
... view your favourite blogs .. by clicking on the links
you’ve set up to them
... the Dashboard… the entry point to your blogsite, where
you can edit your profile
Have a look at the
POSTS page layout… at the top you can see your new blog title
Below that, there are links to Settings, the Template,
Viewing your blog, & editing it.
Below that, there is a toolbar with an array of stuff
on it to change your font, create a link to another website,
and to add a photo to your blog.
You can also “Edit HTML” the underlying code, for your post
eg you could change the position of a photo to left,
center or right. (Yes, you have to use the US spelling for
centre).
Have a go at typing in your first post into the Post title
and the main
body of your post.
Click on Publish > View Blog / edit it / create a new post.
Have a look at your new post.
Congratulations … welcome to the blogosphere!Not happy with the
size or colour of
various fonts? Well, you can easily change all that,
via the Template section….
and you can add lots of colour by adding your own banner
and lots of your own photos, and colourful add-ons like
a clock or a hit counter..
Remember at this stage to save this web page (your blogsite)
in your Favourites column on the left hand side (and also
save the Blogger entry page for signing in).
Note that your posts will be time and date-stamped
… a blog is a log on the web (web_log = blog).
I think the time is set at Californian time -- you can
reset that in “Settings” … click on the Backspace
button > Posts page, and then click on Settings ….
SETTINGS PAGEAdd a description to go underneath your main blog title
Click the Save button
SETTINGS > FORMATTING…
Timestamp format … change to today’s date or time
…
Time zone … change to GMT: London
Click the Save button!
SETTINGS > COMMENTS..you can choose whether to “show / hide” your comments
(yes or no to having anyone comment on your posts).
..... if yes, click on “Who can comment” and select
who can do so.
If you allow anyone to comment, think about having
“comment moderation”and “word verification”
to delete & ward off any unpleasant comments or spam.
If you allow only a limited number of people to view
your blog, you have to state their email addresses
> Email section.
Click the Save button!
DASHBOARD > “Edit User Profile”….. to add minimal (yes, minimal) info about yourself,
and possibly a photo/icon. The latter has to be posted
up on a website somewhere … set up a dummy blog for this?
More about these in a mo.
Remember to click the Save button.
The
HELP section … very helpful, on a wide range of problems.
To add a WEBSITE LINK to your right hand column (sidebar)Go to the Template section >
Add a Page Element >
> Link List > Add to Blog
At the top of the form is the Heading for your link list.
If you wish to add Scary Duck, visit the website now &
highlight and copy (Ctrl + C) the URL (http://...).
Now go back to your link list, and paste (Ctrl + V) the
URL into the URL box (delete one of the https)
Type in the blog title … Scary Duck.
> Save Changes.
To add another link to your list.Click on View Blog.
Click on the editing tool, just below and to the
right of the Scary Duck link
Now add another of your favourite website URLs.
To set up a link within the body of your post.
Find the website you wish to link to …
& highlight and copy (Ctrl + C) the URL (http://).
Now go to your text, and highlight the word or
phrase to be linked.
Click on the green frog icon on the toolbar just
above the text
Paste in the URL (Ctrl + V)
Click on the OK … done :)
A Dummy blogsite?As you get into blogging, you may decide you’d like to give
your site a makeover ….
Add a banner … a photographic title to your blog
Change the colours of the background or the headings/font
Add more things to your right-hand sidebar … links to
other sites, a clock, and a hit counter (to see how many
people are looking at your site).
You can use a dummy blogsite to try out new ideas,
especially if you wish to add a banner photo to the
top of your blogsite.
Caution: if you decide to change your blogger design,
you will lose everything you’ve put in your sidebar.
Look in the Blogger Help section re backing up your
stuff.
Looking again at the
Template area, you can add
a series of Page Elements here ...
..headings of types of blog you’re interested in,
and a list of website URL links below each heading,
a list of your favourite films/books, a clock, a
hit counter, a Flickr banner (to your Flickr site),
a link to the
BBC online weather for Nottm, etc.
You can add a lot of colourful material to the
sidebar in your blog in Page Elements.
You can edit them and also re-position them by
“drag & drop”.
Fonts & Colours Click on this section on the top of the template.
You will see 3 colour palettes from which you can
select colours for various parts of your site,
including the background. A white background, with
black or dark grey text is the most comfortable to
read, I think.
Scroll down the list below “Page Elements”, to see
what you can change in colour and in type of font.
"Save Changes", and re-edit everything if you wish
to do so.
Along the same toolbar as Page Elements, you will
see
“Choose New Template”.If you’d like to try out a different design to Minima,
do so straight away, before adding anything extra to
your blogsite. If you do not back-up your added
material, you would lose all of it. (See Blogger Help
section re backing it up).
Putting photos onto your blogsiteIdeally jpeg photos should be quite small …
… about 700 pixels across (if your photo is in
landscape format), & about 100 kb in size.
Small photos are much easier to upload onto Blogger.
If you post a larger one, eg 5 megabytes in size, then
it could take a few minutes to upload (if you have
Broadband).
There are several ways of shrinking photos down
in size …
1. Using Photoshop or Gimp (which is free to use - more info
HERE)
2. Using PIXresizer ... more info
HERE.
3. Using Outlook Express to email a photo to yourself
(if you have a second email site).
Do a right mouse click on a photo
> Send to > “Make all my pictures smaller”
Use the Control key to add more photos to email, if
you wish. A 5 MB photo will reduce in size & quality
to about 60 kb this way.
To post a photo, go to the Posts page & click on the
blue photo icon on the toolbar, and then go through the
form that comes up.
Use
Browse to find your photo.
Choose a size for your photo on your blogsite.
Choose a central or left hand position for your photo.
(Central positioning can look better, especially if
you are adding text.)
Tick “Accept terms of service” > Upload > Done.
Your photo is now on your site.
You can edit its position by clicking on “Edit HTML”
and typing in “left” instead of “center” say.
Add your photos in reverse order, and add them before
you add any text.
On your blogsite, you can see a larger version of your
photo, by clicking on it.
Commenting on other people’s blogsIf you wish to build up a readership for your blogsite,
leave some favourable comments on other people’s sites,
which will encourage them to look at your’s … they may
add a link to your site if they like it.
I’ve put a lot of links to other people’s sites on
another post, to show you examples of how they’ve
customised their sites. A lot of people who use Wordpress
tend to go for a minimalist design, but there are others
who use a lot of colour and text (eg Petite Anglaise) and
who give you a lot of insight into their lives, which I
think is more interesting to read.
The last few slides of my presentation showed you how to
put a
clock and a
hit counter onto your blogsite.
You simply choose a design you like, fill in a
registration form, extract the HTML code (by Ctrl +C)
and then paste it (Ctrl + V) into a page element box
(Html/ Javascript) on your template.
If you have a Flickr site, you can extract a code
to create a Flickr badge in the same way.
Go to your Flickr site > Site Map > You > “Add a Flickr
badge to your website”.
For further technical tips have a look at these ...
..the
Blogger-Tricks site (though Internet Explorer didn’t like me
staying on this site … I don’t know why).
Have a look at
Jennifer’s more advanced tutorial on
web design for Photoshop users …it’s not particularly
applicable to Blogger, but it give you some idea on
how to create a banner, and it talks about colour schemes.
HAPPY BLOGGING. :)
(site edited & links checked in Feb 2011)
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