Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Creating a blog using blogger.com

CREATE A BLOGGER ACCOUNT

Go to blogger.com and create an account. You will be prompted to sign in using your name and password if you already have a Google Account or to create a Google Account. Then click on the "Create A Blog" link to create your blog.

Next enter a title and address (url) for your blog. The title can be changed later, the url cannot be changed. Next you will be asked to choose a template for your blog. This also can be changed later. Before creating your first entry for your blog you will want to look at the options that are available to you from the Settings tab.

SETTINGS

Basic
*Option available to add title & description
*Options to make your blog more secure.
- "Let Search Engines find your blog?" - change to No
- "Add your blog to our listing" - change to No

Comments
* "Who can comment?" - you have four choices
*"Enable Comment Moderation" - default is No. If you want to see moderate comments before they are visible to others change to Yes
*"Show Word Verification" - default is No. If you want to make sure that spammers are not adding comments change to Yes

Email & Mobile
You can add new posts to your blog via email or via your mobile phone
*For Email Publishing
Fill in the box following "Mail-to-Blogger Address"
If you want the post to auto publish directly to your blog click in the Publish box
The subject line in your email becomes the title of your post
*For Publishing from your Mobile phone
Follow directions for setting up your cell phone

POSTING

Create a New Post
*Choose Create tab
*Add title to the "Title" box
*Add content to body of entry
*If you are not ready to publish what you are working on you click on "Save Now"
*If you are ready to publish, click on "Publish Post"
*You can add labels for your post by typing words in "Labels for this post:" box

Edit Posts
*Choose Edit Posts tab
*Make changes to desired post
*"Save" or "Publish"

TEMPLATE

Page Elements
*There are many gadgets that you can add to your page such as a link list, pictures and text lists. Click on "Add a Page Element" to see the gadgets that are available.

To add a Link List:
*Click on "Add A Gadget"
*Click on "+" to add to blog
*Type "Title" in box (eg. "Blogs of Classmates")
*Type "New Site URL" in box (blog address)
*Type "New Site Name" in box (classmates initials)
*Click on "Add Link" to add another link to the same category
*Click on "Save Changes" - Choose sorting option if desired

Click on "View Blog" at any time to see what you blog looks like with the changes you have made. Only "Published" posts will show up.

ADDING DOCUMENTS TO YOUR BLOG
At this time blogger.com doesn't allow you to upload a Word or Excel document to your blog, so you will need to use a web based storage tool to create a url that you can link to. Documents can be uploaded to Box.net or Google Docs. Both of these tools limit the size and/or number of documents that can be stored, but you will find them useful when you want to be able to link to a document that is not part of your blog.

See Using box.net or Using Google Docs for step by step instructions for using these tools.

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