Blogging Bootcamp

Why I actually may want to know what you had for lunch

What and why

Web logs or blogs are:

Easy to create and maintain

Make the delivery of information simple and social

A simple way to establish or be part of a community

The nuts and bolts

Starting out

Murdoch uses a wordpress system at : http://blogs.murdoch.edu.au/

Click on Get a new blog to start

Create your blog

Choose the url whatihadforbreakfast

Living with diabetes

You can’t change the URL once you have chosen

You can change the title later

Choose the blog title

Set your privacyYou can change the privacy setting later

Agree to the terms of service and create your blog

Ok, you have blog

You can now log into your blog through the red login button from the front page or at the bottom of any page by clicking on dashboard

Backstage with your blogHow your blog looks to the world

Pages versus Posts

A post is an entry to your blogA page is where posts are stored

The post screen

Killer penguins spotted at the post office

Does anyone know about the penguins?The ABC reported that some of them were sporting laser guided heat seeking herrings :http:abc.com.au/freakingpenguins

Add the title to your post

Add your content

Tags and Categories

Category – each post must have one

Tags – entirely optional but used to refine the information in the post

For example:

Category : Local news

Tags: Killer penguins, laser guided heat seeking herring, assault on post office

Draft or Publish?

You can’t take back a post, once its on the net it may stay there forever.Use the Save Draft feature until you are ready to publish.Subscribers getting multiple copies of slightly altered blogs just makes you look unprofessional.

Over 100 to choose from

Changing the theme

So many themes to choose from.

Adding widgets

Choose the widget you want and then click on Add, modify if required and then Save Changes

Plugins

Add cool stuff to your blog.Plugins are site wide and sometimes may require

outside registration for activation

Some plugins have customisable settings

For example gdstar rating allows people to rate your posts and comments

The settingsGeneral you can change the title of the blog and the tagline also

Discussion lets you decide how you and others comment on the blog posts, you can choose to moderate the comments yourself or just have the conversation flow freely.

In privacy you can set the level of access there is to your blog, the top makes your blog visible to the entire world. The administrators setting will mean effectively only you will be able to see it.

hyperlinking

In the post write your hyperlink text, and click on the hyperlink button

Paste the link url, set if the item should open a new window and if you wish set a hover title, then click insert to finish

killerpenguinsgonewild.com

The horror, oh god, the horror

Linking to an image

Locate the image on the internet then click on add media

Click on From URL, paste your link and add a title, then click insert into post. This will create a hyperlink to the picture.

Uploading an image

Locate the image on the internet then click on add media

Click on Select files, then locate the file on your computer

Highlight the file and click open

Add in the title, caption and alignment, then click Insert into post

Your image will be inserted

Embedding a youtube video

4. Switch back to visual mode and add the full title as it appears on youtube , it is also customary to hyperlink to the item. 1. go to youtube and copy the embed code for the video

2.Edit your post and switch from visual to html3.Paste the embed code into the html screen

Commenting

Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see a the comments on a blog or a link to add comments

Fill in the comment form

Click on the comments button

Approve the comment

You can then see the responses

RSS feeds

Really Simple Syndication is a way of letting your subscribers know when you have created or updated a post.They can add the rss feed to a rss reader like google reader, netvibes or microsoft outlook.

Two types of rss are required, one to your original post and another to the comments to the blog

Further information

Better blogging tipshttp://www.chrisbrogan.com/ten-secrets-to-better-blogging/Using wordpress videoshttp://www.wordpresstutorials.com/How to use trackbackshttp://revver.com/video/477084/how-to-do-a-trackback-in-wordpress/Blogging ettiquetehttp://blogs.suite101.com/article.cfm/blogging_etiquetteCreative commons and copyright on the webhttp://

www.blogher.com/choosing-copyright-or-creative-commons-your-intellectual-property