• Help! What’s going on? Where do I start?
• What is a blog and why do I want one?
• How do I add a blog? How will I know when I’ve got one?
• Now that I’ve got a blog, how do I add stuff to it?
• How do I publish my blog?
• How do I add multiple posts to my blog?
• Whoops! My blog is out of order! What can I do?!
• Can I make a change to my blog? How many and how often?
• Can I email people, when I blog? How will people know when I make a change?
• Can people email me or my blog?
• I notice people can comment on my blog. What if I want to remove a comment?
• What’s that little orange square on my blog?
• Can I put other people’s blogs on my website?
• Where can I blog from? Can I blog from a friend house, or a boat, or an Internet Café?
• Now that my blog is done, can I make another one?
• Now that my blog is done, can I print it or put it onto a DVD?
• What else can I do?
• Is there anything I can’t do?

You’re here because you chose to be, and you’ve decided you wanted to blog something. You’re reading this because you have something to say and are trying to learn how to say it.

This document is long, but the first 10% of it applies to 90% of you. Don’t be alarmed by all that you see, as it probably won’t matter to you. If your goal is to just type stuff and post it online, then you’ll really only need to focus on the first couple of questions. If you’re goal is to create a lavish multi-media extravaganza, as you blog your way through the universe, then read on! Yes, you can do that, too!

The Short Version
You’re making a blog. A blog is a series of posts, recorded in chorological time and are posted and archived as such. Basically, as you type and add to your blog, a little computer is organizing your posts by the date and time. It’s pretty simple really.

That’s it! That’s the big picture! You write stuff, and this system organizes it and displays it in the order you create it.

To start, log in, add a blog widget (if you don’t have one, already), and start posting!

Basically, you write stuff and the blog will organize your stuff for you, based on the dates you’ve written it. The most recent post will be at the top of the list, with the oldest entry being at the bottom.

There are a lot of reasons for wanting one, but mostly the idea is to share things with others in a fashion that makes sense, is easy to explain and hopefully fun and/or informative!

• Make sure you’re logged in.
• Make sure you’re in edit mode.
• Click a , in the one of the wider possible areas (a blog takes up a lot of room, so you’ll want to make sure you give it the room it needs).
• Click the large image reading “Blog”.
• Give your blog a name, something meaningful, like “Trip to Mexico”.
• Pick a text style you think will look nice and be easy to read on your website.
• Press the green submit button!

That’s it! You’ve just added a blog widget to your site.

You know you’ve added a blog widget, because it looks similar to this:

Notice a few things about it:

• It’s got a above and below it, so you may add anything above and below your blog, from pictures to videos to documents.
• It’s surrounded by a red-dashed line, so you know where the widget begins and ends.
• It’s got a built-in menu, which will expand on its own, as you add things to it.
• It’s got a “CHANGE DISPLAY” button, so you can change the blog menu.
• A green “ADD NEW ENTRY” button, which will open an editor, allowing you to make a new post, when clicked.
• In this case, it has one blog entry, although it will display up to the 5 most recent blog entries, and offer every entry ever entered through the menus at the top.
• An RSS feed button. This is more for other people to post the contents of your blog on their site, or view its contents in a newsfeed reader, of some kind.
• Like all blobs, it also as the type of widget listed in the top-left, the widget’s name, also in the top-left and the option to edit the widget, or remove it from the page, in the top-right.

That’s it! You’ve got a blog!

• Log into your website as the website administrator.
• Go to the page with your blog widget.
• Put your site into edit mode, by clicking the “EDIT PAGE” button in the top-left corner of the screen.
• Only in edit mode will you see the button reading “ADD NEW ENTRY”. Click it to make a blog entry. The button looks like this:

• Start adding stuff!
  • Title for this Entry: This will be used in the blog menus to help direct people to various entries. The more informative (yet concise) it is, the better. This helps people know what they’ll be getting, if they click on it.
  • Entry Date: This will be set to “Now”, or today’s date, as a default. You can change this to a date in the past or future, and if you have other entries, it will display in a spot that corresponds with the surrounding dates you’ve set.
  • The Editor: This is where you put your entry. You can add as much or as little as you’d like. Just start typing! Treat this like a standard word processor. To add images, see other sections on working with images and uploading to learn more about
• When you’re done with your post, you most likely only want to press the green “SUBMIT” button, until you’re a little more familiar with blogging. However, the following 4 buttons will result in the following 4 results.
  • CANCEL: This will simply return you to your page and will behave as if nothing had ever happened. Any work conducted during the session will be erased from the system and added to nothing. This will result in no change on the page or the blog.
  • SUBMIT: This will commit your post to the page and blog and will add it, chronologically, to your blog menu. For anything connected to your blog using the RSS feature, this new post will also become available. This WILL NOT email the entry to anyone.
  • EMAIL ONLY TO MYSELF: This will result in the same behavior as the green SUBMIT button, but will additionally email a copy of the entry to you. This is a fantastic way to test blog emails, prior to emailing them to a group. You may return to a post and edit it or email it, as many times as you would like.
  • EMAIL TO ALL REGISTERED MEMBERS: This will result in the same behavior as the green SUBMIT button, but will additionally email a copy of the entry to every individual email address registered to your blog. You may return to a post and edit it or email it, as many times as you would like. It is recommended you send a copy to only yourself for the first few email attempts, just to be sure you’ve got the hang of it, and are not needlessly emailing people your test emails.

That’s it! You’ve just added an entry to your site!

Your whole website is a blog, in a manner of speaking. The moment it was created, it was published for the world to see. Any change you make is made “real time” and will be noticed by any frequent visitor to your site. TalkSpot blogs and websites work from a WYSIWYG standpoint. (WYSIWYG, pronounced Wizzy-Wig: What You See Is What You Get.)

Each time you add a new entry to your blog and press either of the 2 email buttons, or the submit button, the post is published to the internet, live, to be seen by anyone with access to your content. You may have even emailed some people.

Just add another new post! Every time you visit your blog’s home page and put your website into edit mode, there will be an inviting green button asking you to “ADD NEW ENTRY”. Follow the same steps as above to add a new entry, and that’s it!

You’re done!

Just like any entry, you can change anything about it, from it’s order, to it’s contents. You can even delete it!

To change a blog entry:

• Log into your website as the website administrator.
• Go to the page with your blog widget.
• Put your site into edit mode, by clicking the “EDIT PAGE” button in the top-left corner of the screen.
• Locate the entry you plan on changing by reviewing the blog titles. You may need to hover your mouse over the menu at the top of the blog widget to see your older entries.
  • Once you’ve located the desired entry, click the title.
• Now you have two options:
  • EDIT THIS ENTRY: This will bring your entry up in the editor and will offer you the opportunity to change anything about it, from the title, to the date, to the contents of the entry. You’ll also have the opportunity to email it to yourself, or others, from this vantage point.
    • To change the order: Blogs work off a concept of time, and will always post the most recent post closer to the top of the list, than an older post. To change the order of a post, you need to change the date, relative to other dates within the blog. This may mean you need to have a better understanding of the other dates within your blog.
      • If you went to the bank on January 1st, and wrote about it on January 1st, the post will be listed on January 1st.
      • If you went to the grocery store on March 3rd, and wrote about it on March 3rd, the post will be listed on March 3rd.
      • If you went to the post office on February 2nd, but it is now April 4th, you can set the date to February 2nd and the entry will fit snuggly between the trip to the bank and the grocery store.
    • Even if your blog is more about information sharing and less about “when it happened”, the blog is stilled a date based entity, so reshuffling the entries will need to occur based on the date and time. To re-organize, you’ll need to know where you want to put it, then check the dates and times of the posts surrounded the intended destination, then set the date-time of the entry to a date-time between the other two date-times.
    • When you’re done making your change, cancel, submit, email to everyone or just yourself!
  • DELETE THIS ENTRY:
    • This will remove the entry from your blog, including any comments which may have been made. This is one of the few times where something removed from the system will actually be deleted and cannot be re-added at a later date (unless you restore an older version of the website).

Yes, you can make as many changes to as many blog entries as you’d like, as often as you’d like, from any location, at any time.

To learn more about making a change to your blog, see the section on re-ordering your blog.

Your blog has 4 options when posting. As can be seen in this question, you can email to yourself, and you can email to anyone registered to your website.

While you should always test by emailing to yourself, first, eventually you'll get the hang of how all the formatting works, the images, etc. At any point, you may also email anyone registered to your blog. This will post your entry and will also send out as many emails as you have registered members. Their email will contain everything you'd put into your entry, including any images and links. It will also contain links back to the original posting, so people may comment!

If you get into this habit, your blog and list of registered members may grow (assuming it's a good blog, and worthy of spreading, mind you...)

People can visit your blog and comment on it. This is the only "built in" form of contact with the blog widget.

That said, a blog doesn't need to be limited to just the blog widget. You may obviously share your email address with the world, and people can email you directly. You can also set up a form through the contact widget or the survey/poll widget. These will collect information from people and email them to you, without your needing to share any private contact information.

It's your blog and you can make it as public or private as you'd like, and you can make yourself as available to your fans as you're comfortable with!

Just like any other widget, while in edit mode, you will see the yellow pencil and the red (-) icon in the top-right corner. These will also be within your blog comments. As a result, you may edit them, or remove them. This gives you the power to modify a comment, if someone is saying something you don't condone, or just completly remove it, altogether.

RSS: Real Simple Syndication

That little orange square is more for "other people", than it is for you. It's a fantastic way to spread your blog, however. If someone clicks that little square, it offers several ways to add your blog to another website, system or "news reader".

RSS is a little tricky to explain. Click the little square for a clue. Behind the scenes your blog is being bundled and packaged into a consistent way, which other programs scattered all throughout the internet know how to interpret, read and show. So, for anyone interested in your blog, they can add your content to their website. They can read your newest entry in a newsreader on their computer, without needing to visit your website, etc. It's an amazing new way to spread the word.

Sure can!

Any TalkSpot blog has an RSS file behind it. You can use your newsfeed or RSS widget to display any other blog you find. You just need to find the web address for it.

This is actually true of any blog or newsfeed which is supported by RSS. It doesn't need to be a TalkSpot feed.

You will usually see a small orange square, or a small orange icon reading "RSS". Clicking this will usually show you the .rss file in the location bar (where you type addresses into your browser). Once you see the address (will looking something like "www.DomainName.com/Blog.rss"), copy and paste it into your RSS widget and you're set!

You can blog from anywhere you have an internet connection. This could be a satelite connection for a mega-yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, or a dial-up connection at Grandma's house, or an Internet Café in Helsinki, Finland. Anywhere you have a connection will work.

Furthermore, you don't need a connection to do the writing! It's not uncommon for someone to have a word processor running, for writing their blog. If internet connections are scarce, you can write a blog in a word document, or other word processor. "Notepad" is great for this, as well! You can write you blog, or even a series of entries. Then, when you do find an internet connection, you can copy and paste your entries into your blog, and will have updated and maybe even emailed your entries to people, in mere minutes! Anywhere, anytimes, with a quick and dirty internet connection, you can blog!

Sure can!

A single blog widget is infinite. There are no programatic limitations on your blog, and you may post as many entries as you see fit. There are times where you may deem one "done", be in the end of a trip, the end of a topic, or just a blog becomes too big and too unruly.

You can just add a page and add another blog. Fresh start!

There are some limitions with the blogs. You can have only one per page, and if you are using the free version of the tools, there are page limitations. As a result, you can have as many blogs as you have pages, and you can always upgrade!

No, but good idea!

This is on our list of things to do. We may get there, but not for a while. If you plan to do "package" your blog for some reason, it may not hurt to copy and paste the contents into a word document, and save a copy on your computer. This way, with a few extra seconds per post, you've got a backup copy, ready to print, save, email or burn to a CD or DVD, in a document form.

To date, there are 2 TalkSpot blogs which were actually re-purposed, and sold as books!

A blog can be taken as far as you'd like. You are limited by only your creativity. Utilizing links, images, maps, weather, rss, video, menus, and more, you can harness the power of the internet to make your blog as rich and robust as the internet, itself. Yes, it may take some time, some thought, and some planning, but good blogs are generally much more than simple text. They are frequently multi-media extravaganza's, putting forth the best way to describe a story or event. Take the time to learn more about TalkSpot's blobs, links, videos and images and bring your blog to life!

Probably, but we don't know what that is.

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