Abra Technologies

BLOGGING FOR THE STARTERS

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Blogging doesn’t really need any introduction, but since we always introduce the subject of our article, let us get this essential job out of the way.

A portmanteau of Web and log-blogs are simply personalized Web Sites that are as good as an online diary.

That was the intended definition. These days, however, collaborative blogs by corporate teams have sprouted all over the internet.

Since the content in a blog is determined by the user, there can be blogs on practically any subject under the sun. Blogs are a great way of expressing opinions unhindered by the fear of censorship or unwillingness of publishers. It’s free… it’s fast… and it’s easily accessible. All you need is an account with any of the myriad blogging services which are generally available for free. Customize your blog with templates, widgets, write content and create a community of readers. You can also upload pictures and video. Blogs are a great source of news and have been used effectively by political activists, writers, professionals and the like to get their message across. To know what the world is talking about, you need to be familiar with blogs.

1. Blogger (www.blogger.com)

Blogger, is one of the most widely known blog hosting websites. It used to be an independent site before being taken over by Google. Therefore, you can use your Google Account to create a blog – in a few minutes.

Navigate to www.blogger.com and sign in using your Google username and password. You will have to choose a name for your blog. When it comes to hosting, Blogger offers two options – either you can host the blog on the Blogger server, or on a dedicated server. The latter option become viable if your blog has garnered plenty of hits and is very popular. Blogs can be posted via FTP or SFTP (Secure FTP). Before doing that, however, you need to set up your blog.

Blogger has been out of beta since the beginning of last year, and there have been plenty of additions in terms of features. We have already seen how the new drag and drop interface works when you need to customize the blog and add newer features, but there is no harm in going over it again. Before this feature was launched, blogs had to be customized by going through the source code and modifying the HTML. This definitely doesn’t appeal to the average user, especially those without technical know-how. However, their new interface enables users to modify the look of their blog by simple mouse actions.
The various page elements that you can add to your blog include slideshows of photos, links, RSS feeds, video, HTML/JavaScript, polls and labels. Select as per your need, and continue refining your blog. You could also choose from among the many templates offered in the Blogger setup. Just go to Template > New Template and choose your pick. In case you don’t like the default templates, there are plenty of sites offering free Blogger templates. Some of these web sites are www.bloggertemplates.org, http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog.templates/ and http://pyzam.com/bloggertemplates for high quality templates.
Blogs can be posted in several newer languages including Hindi. There are absolutely no keyboard mappings to learn – you just have to type the equivalent phonetic script in English. We have tested the feature and while some of the more complicated words are not displayed in very accurate way, on the whole, this feature is pretty much intuitive. The Arabic and Persian script is also supported, with the alignment and flow of template elements looking like a mirror image of the normal ones where the direction of flow of language is from left to right. Besides this, a nifty “Auto Save” feature is enabled which keeps running in the background while you continue to type your post.

Another new feature that has been incorporated is the seamless integration between YouTube and Blogger and video uploading features. Videos can be uploaded locally simply with a mouse click. You could also share all your YouTube videos on your blog. As previously mentioned, photos from different photo sharing services like Flickr, Picassa and Photobucket can be displayed simply by using their feed. All your Blogger photos can be viewed in Picassa as well, with each post having its own album. You can also post via e-mail, or enable the settings such that whenever there is a new comment in response to yours in a blog post that would be mailed to you. Blogger is compatible with OpenID, therefore users can even comment on your posts using their OPenIDs instead of Google IDs, OpenIDs work on other blogging services such as Wordpress and Typepad as well, so users can utilize a customized ID for different services instead of signing up for multiple accounts.

Another neat feature that has been introduced is the use of custom domains. Blogger will host your site and the best aprt is that it won’t end with the usual .blogspot.com for free. However, you still have to buy the domain either from registrars or from Blogger. Any posts that you make will be automatically redirected to the new domain. For this, just go to Settings > Publishing tab in your Blogger to configure some simple options. The older BlogSpot address will be automatically forwarded to the new address.

2. WordPress (www.wordpress.org)

WordPress is a open source blog publishing system that can also be used to host blogs. It is free to use and is very suitable for someone who wants to host blogs in his/her domain. In case you don’t have a domain, you can sign up for your very own Wordpress blog.

Wordpress blogs are the ultimate in tweaking. With enough time on your hands and by being a tech-savvy, you can make your blog look as good as a professionally designed site. Wordpress blogs have plug ins-downloadable widgets that can be used to extend the usability and features of a barebones blog. Get the full list of plug ins from http://www.wordpress.org/extend/plugins. Some of the most popular downloadable ones are those that manage activities such as commenting, posting and statistics. Most of these plug-ins are free and developed by third-party developers.

Signing up is free and fast-select a name for your blog, user-name and password and you are all set to blog.

After signing up, choose your template and widgets that would add more zing to your blog. WordPress comes with about 50 default themes, while there are tons of free and gorgeous themes available on the Internet at http://themes.wordpress.net/page/1/, www.wpthemesfree.com and www.wpthemespot.com. In fact themes used in WordPress can also be used on other blogging services such as Blogger.

The WordPress dashboard provides a host of features for writing, organizing and publishing your blog. Apart from the standard online text editor, there are options for categorizing your posts, bookmarking and tagging them and also setting the privacy options which could keep the blog visible to either all or just limit them to private. You could also decide on who gets to post comments. An interesting feature of the WordPress blog is the integrated stat tool which is as good as a specialized third party tool such as Statcouter (Dashboard > Blog Stats). A spam blocker called Akismet, available as a plugin handles spam in the comments section by looking for certain keywords and sentence patterns. All your favourite blogs can be managed and also arranged in categories via Blogroll (Blogroll > Categories).

A new feature that has been implemented in Wordpress is integration with OpenID. You are automatically assigned an OpenID, depending on the name of the blog. This URL, can be used to log in to other sites that supports OpenID where you can comment. This virtually covers all the other blogging platforms. The storage space on Wordpress has been jacked up to an awesome 3 GB, which means that you can upload even more word documents, spreadsheets, presentations and pictures. In case you want more space for your data, you have to opt for the premium membership by paying in two denominations $50 per year for 15 GB and $90 per year for 25 GB.

3. Live Journal

Live Journal is a blogging platform that lays strong emphasis on social networking and community. Its basic features are available in the free version and should be quite sufficient for the vast majority of bloggers. However, those with specialized needs could choose the paid account which starts at $2 per month. There are two types of free accounts: Basic and Plus.

Live Journal blogs look a little bit like the profile page of a typical social networking site. Invite friends, create and join communities on subjects that you are passionate about. Enter details like name, birthday and education. You can use up to 15 pictures for your profile. Finding communities is easy-go to http://www.livejourmal.com/community/search.bml and enter the search parameters to find out communities. Likewise, friends can be arranged under different categories like family, local friends, online friends, school and work. You can add or delete categories, as well as reshuffle people between categories.

The scrapbook is the one stop shop when it comes to managing your pictures. Upload pictures, choose or create gallery styles, manage photos and tag them. It is modeled on the photo management applications of other social sites and the similarities are quite evident. There is a wizard for windows which can be run to upload pictures directly from Explorer.

Nevertheless, Live Journal scores in the myriad posting options. Apart from the plain vanilla WWYSIWYG text editor, you can download a client from http://www.livejournal.com/download/ so that you type your post even while you are disconnected. These posts then get uploaded as soon as you get hooked onto the Internet, similar to the Send/Receive function in Outlook! These clients can run on different operating systems, browsers, cell phones and PDAs. There are clients for Blogger too. regarding the methods for posting, you can also voice-post or blog from your mobile phone on Live Journal (limited to a specific number every month). There is a newly launched feature called LJ talk, an IM which uses the Jabber protocol. After adding username@livejournal.com to your friend list you can post from the IM clients supporting the Jabber protocol. If you choose mobile posting, you can perform all your tasks from a cell phone. Members with paid, permanent and Plus accounts can set up messaging from the web, where friends can send messages to your phone via LJ. You can learn more about using LJ via mobile phone from http://www.livejournal.com/manage/mobile.bml

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