Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

Setting up Blogs

Blogger makes it simple to create a basic blog. Here are the steps we went over in class.

Step 1: Using the Mozilla Firefox browser (you can use other browsers for now, but only Firefox supports the video upload feature you will need later this semester) go to www.blogger.com

Step 2: Create your blog.
• First, you will set up your account information. You will need to setup a gmail account if you do not already have one. To create a gmail account (it’s free) go to www.gmail.com.

• Second, create a blog name and a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Each URL is unique, so you may have to try a few different URLs before finding an available one (example: there can be 1,000 blogs named Pratt Digital Design but only one blog can have the URL http://prattdigitaldesign.blogspot.com/).

• Third, choose your template – this can be changed later.

Now you have a blog.

Step 3: Change your blog settings.

To change anything in your blog you will use the three tabs at the top of your page: Posting, Settings, and Template. Under the Posting tab, you can create new blog entries (aka: posts), remove posts, edit posts or moderate comments. Under the Settings tab, you can modify features on your blog. These features include everything from who can comment or even look at your blog to the format of the date/time stamp on your posts. Under the Template tab you can change the appearance of your blog. This includes layout, color, typeface…etc.

Blogger has many customization options. These are at your discretion, however, your classmates must be able to submit comments on your blog. Click Settings >> Comments >> Who Can Comment. >> Select the “Anyone” option.

A useful setting is under
Settings >> Comments >> Show Word Verification for Comments >> Seclect “Yes”. This prevents people from spamming your comments section with unwanted automated messages.

Step 4: Post on your blog

To post on your blog, click Posting >> Create. Here you can insert images, video and text. If you are comfortable using HTML code, you can create your post in the Edit HTML tab, otherwise format your post under the Compose tab.

When you’ve finished composing your post, click on the orange “publish post” box to put it on your blog.

Note: You can preview your post before publishing it by clicking on the “Preview” link on the upper right corner of your screen.