Using Blogs At The U of S

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Using Blogs At The U of S

• Tyson Brown, B.Ed, M.Ed

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Learning Goals

• How to access the U of S Blog service at
  http//blogs.usask.ca/
• How to sign up for a blog
• How to create, post, view and edit a blog entry
• How to add files to your blog
• How to format your blog entries
• How to set up categories for your blog

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Learning Goals

• How to set up automatic notifications
• How to set up feedback comments and manage the
  comment approvals
• How to add additional authors
• How to administer your blog effectively
• How to to use RSS feeds to display your blog
  headlines on other campus web pages.
• How to troubleshoot common blog problems

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What Is A Blog?

• Short for Web Log
• a public web site where users post informal
  journals of their thoughts, comments, and
  philosophies
• Another method of distributing information via
  the Web without having to be very tech-savvy.

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How To Access

• http//blogs.usask.ca
• Click the Login link and login with your NSID
  username and password.
• To log out, you need to quit your browser.

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How to sign up for a blog

• Click on the Create New Weblog link in the
  Shortcuts menu
• Fill Out the requested Information
• Avoid spaces, keep names in lower case

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How To Sign Up for a Blog

• Creating blog creates folder/directory on
  blogs.usask.ca where YOUR blog information is
  stored.
• Takes you to YOUR blog Main Menu, where your
  blogs are listed (you CAN have more than one
  blog).

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The Main Menu

• Click here to access this blog

Shortcuts to tools for THIS blog
Click here to see the public view of this blog
Shortcuts to general Blog tools
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Viewing Your Blog

• Two different ways to view your blog
• Administrator View, Public View
• Click on Blog Title link to access the
  Administrator view.
• Click on Blog URL link to access the public view
• Look first at Administrator view, as until we put
  something in, there is NO public view

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Administrator View

• The blog administrator can
• create, format, publish entries
• Configure blog-specific preferences like
• of days entries are displayed, length of entry
  displayed
• categories, comments, additional authors
• Format look of entire blog using styles and
  templates - advanced course

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The Main Menu
Posting Tools
Management tools
Utilities
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WebLog Config menu

• Need to make one change to Preferences
• Preferences -gt Comment Configuration
• Turn off Accept Comments from Registered Visitors
• Click Save Changes
• Rebuild My Site - Need to do this after any
  setting change

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How To Create An Entry

• Title
• Category
• Entry Body
• Extended Entry
• Excerpt
• Post Status
• Comments
• Preview/Save

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How to Post An Entry

• Once entry is finished, select Post Status
• Once Post Status is selected, click "Save"

Draft - Come back later to finish editing Publish
- Available to the world NOW Future - Pick a date
it will be published
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How to View/Edit an Entry

• Click "View Site" in the Utilities menu
• New browser window will open, showing new entry
• Return to Edit Entry page, make changes, save
  changes, reload other window to see changes

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Public View

• Two ways to get to the Public View
• From Administrator menu, click View Site. Opens
  a web window showing your Blog
• From any web browser anywhere on the web, enter
  the URL listed for this blog on your Blog Main
  Menu
• eg. http//blogs.usask.ca/my_new_blog

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How to Format Your Entries

• Use the formatting buttons above each blank in
  the Edit Entry form
• Add raw HTML tags to your entry text
• ie ltbgt, lta href"link.html"gtlinklt/agt, etc
• useful if your browser doesn't support the
  formatting buttons

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How To Add Files

• Different kinds of files can be added
• images, PDFs, other files for download
• Files can be added, but NOT removed
• Use the Upload File button
• Choose file, then click Upload
• Either create new entry, or generate HTML to
  copy/paste into existing entry
• Popup image - Image appears in a new window
• Embedded image - appears in body (use for PDF
  links)

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Setting Up Categories

• Categories enable sorting of blog entries
• Top Level categories
• Subcategories under Top Level using the
  link
• Add Category, then Rebuild Site

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Configuring Your User Profile

• From Main Menu, click
• Edit your Profile
• Use this to change
• Nickname
• appears on posts IF templates set up
• Email address
• Website URL
• Can't change language from English

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Automatic Notifications

• Enables you to enter e-mail addresses of people
  to notify when you publish new blog entries.
• Done on a per-blog basis (ie, if you have more
  than one blog, need to enter notification emails
  for each blog

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Feedback Comments

• To enable comments
• Go to Weblog Config, select Preferences
• Scroll down to Comment Configuration
• Check "Accept Comments from Unregistered Visitors
• Require Name and Email
• Enable Unregistered Comment Moderation

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Feedback Comments

• Registered Users option is more complicated
• Allowing HTML in comments can be dangerous,
  Auto-Links are ok if comments are moderated
• Email New Comments is nice to keep you informed

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Additional Authors

• Select authors either from pulldown list or by
  clicking the Complete List of Authors link
• Authors can have different permissions within
  each weblog
• Authors can be added but not removed
• All this may change in V. 3.2 of MT

25
Effective Blog Administration

• Much of this done from the Weblog Config window
• General Settings
• Days displayed
• of words in Exerpt
• IP Banning
• If you are getting inappropriate comments, can
  ban those persons IP addresses.

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Using RSS Feeds

• RSS Rich Site Summary
• Need .rdf address of RSS file
• http//blogs.usask.ca/my_new_blog/index.rdf
• Use Feed2js to generate javascript to put into
  your webpage where you want headlines to appear
• http//blogs.usask.ca/feed2js/

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Troubleshooting

• Always make sure you have reloaded your browser
  view and rebuilt your site
• Troubleshooting section of the manual
• https//blogs.usask.ca/mt/docs/mtmanual.html
• Movable Type Support Forums
• http//www.sixapart.com/movabletype/forums/