Jan

15

Sign Up for a Blog

Filed Under How To | Leave a Comment 

Welcome to the PBCC English blog.

Sign up for your blog here.

Jan

15

Blogging Tutorial

Filed Under How To | Leave a Comment 

Signing Up for a Blog

Please Remember: This site is academicblog.ORG/pbcc … not “.com”

1. Click the sign up link.

2. Choose a username and put in your email address.

3. Click “Next.”

4. Choose the url (the web address for your blog). It is automatically set to your username, but you can change this if you like. You CANNOT change this later.

5. Choose a title for your blog (this will appear at the top of your blog page - you CAN change this later).

6. Click “Sign Up.”

7. Go to the email account you entered when signing up. Click on the activation link.

8. Double-click on the Password to highlight it, and then copy it. (You can copy it by 1. using the right-click button or 2. using an icon or the edit function at the top of the browser or 3. using the keyboard keys: Ctrl + C.

9. Click “Login” and input your username and paste (right click / icons / Ctrl + V) your password into the box. DO NOT click the “Remember me” box.

10. You are now in your Site Administration area (Site Admin). Now we will change your password to something you can remember easily. Go to the second to the last option at the top of the page labeled “Users.” In the new bar that appears below the top bar, choose “Your Profile.”

11. Scroll down to the bottom right-hand corner and enter your new password twice. Click the “Update profile” button in the bottom right-hand corner.

12. At the top of the page (top left-hand corner), click “View site” to see what the front of your site looks like (this is what the public will see).

13. You will notice that you already have a post there and some other information on the sides. We will now delete that first post.

14. On the left-hand side, go to the bottom section titled “Admin” and click on “Site Admin” to go back into your “Site Administration” area. (This is a private area that no one except you can access. You must be logged in with your username and password to access this area.) If you are logged in, you will be able to go back and forth between the Site Admin (backend) and the Homepage (front end) of your blog until you log out.

15. We will now delete the first post and write a new post.

16. Click “Manage” at the top in order to manage the posts on your blog. In the middle of the page, you will see all of the posts that are on your blog. You will also see different options on the right-hand side (View / Edit / Delete). Go ahead and click “Delete” and confirm that you want to delete the post. (You will notice that there is still a comment from the first post. That will disappear on its own because you have deleted the post that it belongs to.)

17. Click on “View site” in the top left-hand corner of the page. You will see that the first post has now been deleted. Go to the left-hand side at the bottom again >> Admin >> Site Admin and go back into your Site Administration area.

18. We will now write a new post. At the top, click on the “Write” button. This is where you will spend most of your time writing your posts.

19. Write a new test post. Give it a title and write a short test post in the main editor box (the large box).

20. Below the main box, you have a smaller box labeled “Tags.” This can help you identify the topic of your post. You DO NOT NEED to fill out this box if you don’t want to. But let’s put some test tags in. If you have more than one tag, separate them with commas. Put in some test tags, for example: test 1, test 2.

21. Below the Tags box, you have 3 options for saving: 1. “Save and Continue Editing,” 2. “Save,” and 3. “Publish.”

1. “Save and Continue Editing” will not publish your post to front page, but it will make sure that what you have already written is saved, and it will let you continue working on the draft of your post.

2. “Save” will save your post as a draft. It WILL NOT publish your post to the front page. It will simply save the draft so that you can work on it at a later time. If you don’t want to continue working on it now, and you DON’T want to publish it yet, then use the “Save” option.

3. “Publish” will publish the post to the front page and everyone will be able to see it. You can still edit the post later if you want to, and so if you see mistakes that you can correct you can, but be aware that when you hit “Publish” it will be viewable to the public.

22. We are not quite finished with our test post, and so we will just hit “Save and Continue Editing” for now.

(Tip: Computers are not perfect, and sometimes you can lose a lot of work if they hit a glitch, and so if you have worked hard on a draft, it is a good idea to copy it before hitting ANY button. To do this, highlight all of the text and COPY it. Then you can hit one of the three buttons. If there is a problem, you can start again and use the PASTE function. The text that you copied should still be in your computer’s system and you can paste what you copied.)

23. Before we publish our post, we will put it in a category. The default category is “Uncategorized.” You can leave it there if you like, or you can begin to make new categories.

In the top right-hand corner of the editor, you will see a box labeled “Categories.” Make a new test category by typing it into the box and clicking “Add.” Make a category titled “Test.”

24. You will see that there is a new category now and it is already checked for this post. You can put a post in more than one category if you like. In this case, however, we don’t want the post to go into the “Uncategorized” category, and so uncheck that one.

25. You’re now ready to publish your test post. Go to the bottom of the editor box where you have the three options (1. “Save and Continue Editing,” 2. “Save,” and 3. “Publish.”) and click “Publish.”  

26. Your test post should now be on the front page, so check to see if it is. Go to the top left-hand corner and click “View site.”

You should see your test post in the middle and on the left-hand side under “Categories,” you should see the category “Test” that you made.

Click on the “Test” category link. The page will look the same for now because you only have one post in that category; however, if you had more than one post in that category, you would see all of them listed here. (Notice at the top of the browser in the web address bar you are in the /test/ category section.)

27. Let’s practice editing a publish post now. Go to the left-hand side down to “Admin” again, and click on “Site Admin” to go back into your Site Administration area.

28. Because we are going to edit a post, we need to go back to the Manage section (top bar - 3rd option over:  Dashboard | Write | MANAGE … ). Click on “Manage.” 

29. You should now see all your posts listed in the middle of the page. Because we deleted the first post and wrote a new test post, you should only have one post there (later, when you write more posts, all of them will appear here).

30. On the right-hand side, click the “Edit” option. (View | EDIT | Delete)

31. You should now be back in your editor section with the text of your post available for you to edit. We are going to edit the post by putting in a picture.

32. Below the main editor box and the Save/Publish buttons, you should see another box with an “Upload” button on the left-hand side.

Search in your computer’s folders for a picture by clicking on the “Browse” button. Add the picture.

You can give the picture a title and description if you like, but you don’t have to.

When you’re ready, click the “Upload” button. (You MUST click “Upload” to get the picture from your computer into your blog. Don’t forget to do this.)

You should notice now that a thumbnail of the picture appears along with some options for you if you are ready to put the picture in one of your posts.

The default option is have the picture appear as a thumbnail in your post (a small version). When someone clicks on the thumbnail, it will take them to a larger version.

However, you can also choose to show the full picture on the post by choose the “Full size” option. Full-size pictures in a blog post can often add a more dramatic effect, but some also prefer  the more understated thumbnails.

33. Let’s test out the thumbnail. Because it’s already selected, click the “Send to editor” button at the bottom. (This will send the picture up into the main editor box at the top where your text is. From there you can position it how you like.)

34. Let’s position the thumbnail to be in the upper left-hand corner of the post. You can do this in various ways, depending on where your picture is in the editor.

35. We will practice simply dragging the picture to the upper left-hand corner, so simple click on the picture once to high-light it. You should see little squares appear around the edges of the picture. This means it’s ready to be dragged.

36. WITH YOUR FINGER STILL PRESSING THE MOUSE BUTTON, drag the picture to the position in front of the first word of your post. This should automatically position the picture in the upper-left position.

37. Click “Save.” And now let’s view it on the front page to make sure it’s all right. Click “View site” in the top left-hand corner. 

38. You should see your picture positioned on the left-hand side of your post. If you have a lot of text, you will see that the text wraps around the picture. If you just a have a line or two, your text will just float out to the right.

Click on the picture to view the larger image.

39. OK, we’ve “managed” some posts through the “Manage” function by deleting one post and editing another, so now let’s “manage” the “Categories.”

40. Go back to your Site Administration area by going the left hand side and clicking on “Site Admin.”

41. Go to the “Manage” section  (Dashboard | Write | MANAGE … ) so that we can “manage” the categories.

42. One the second level of options under the “Manage” section click on “Categories.” You will see the “Test” category that you created when you were writing your post, and you will also see the default “Uncategorized” category.

43. You can add new categories here if you like (click “add new”) in the top left-hand area beside the title “Categories.” Or you can delete or change the name of your existing categories by clicking on “Delete” or “Edit” on the right-hand side.

44. Let’s do a quick name change of our existing “Test” category. Click on “Edit.” Change the “Category name” from “Test” to “New Test.” Click the “Edit Category” button in the bottom left-hand corner in order to save your changes. 

45. Now check your front page to see what the change looks like. Click “View site” in the upper left-hand corner. 

46. On the left-hand side you should now see that your category “Test” has changed to “New Test.” Your first post is still assigned to that category.

47. Now we will set up how the comments on your blog will be handled. Go back into the Site Administration area by going to the left-hand side and clicking on “Site Admin.”

48. Go to the “Options” section in the top menu bar. It’s the last button on the right. 

49. In the new menu bar that appears below it, go the 4th button over >> “Discussion.” Here you will set up who can comment on your blog and whether or not you want to be notified when someone comments on one of your posts.

50. You can leave all the boxes in the first section checked. (”Usual settings for an article”)

51. In the 2nd section “E-mail me whenever:” you can decide if you want to be notified when someone posts a comment. If you would like to get an email when someone comments, leave the first box checked. You can also leave the second box checked.

52. In the next section titled “Before a comment appears:” UNCHECK the last box title “Comment author must have a previously approved comment.” Leave the other boxes as they are. When you finish, this section should look like this:

1. UNCHECKED “An administrator must always approve the comment”
2. CHECKED “Comment author must fill out name and e-mail”
3. UNCHECKED “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”

53. Save these settings by clicking the “Update Options” button in the top right-hand corner.

54. To change the “tagline” that goes under the title of your blog (currently it reads “Just another PBCC English weblog”), still in the “Options” section, click on the first sub-menu button on the left side title “General.” There you will see your blog title and your tagline. You can change them both here. Remember to click the “Update Options” button when you’ve finished.

(Note: Changing your blog title WILL NOT change your blog address. The web address will always stay the same: academicblog.org/pbcc/your-original-address.)

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