Last year at a family History Conference Gillian went to a lecture on blogging. The lecturer recommended Google’s (free) Blogger program and said it was easy to use with both essential and useful features. Gillian decided to test this and within half an hour had set up a basic blog site for this Computer Branch.
So what is a blog, and what use is it? A blog is the abbreviation of Web Log. In essence it is a notebook on the internet where the latest addition appears first, unlike a written book where the first entry is at the front. It can be used for a variety of purposes: personal diary/journal; collaborative space; news channel (Dick Eastman’s newsletter now appears as a blog); collection of links.
There are many choices of Blog software many, but not all, are free. The Blog can either be hosted on your own webspace or on the software’s own space. Using Blogger the steps to get started are
1 Go to www.blogger.com
2 Create an account. If you have an existing Google account this can be used as a first step. If not then create a Google account using an existing email address. Enter a password (twice for security) Choose the Display name and the enter the Word Verification by copying the letters of the image into the text box. Accept the conditions (to say that you have read them)
3 Name the Blog. Choose the Blog name and select a Blog address. Check to see if it is available
4 Choose a template. Choose a template for the Blog. A dozen samples are shown which can be enlarged for preview. As this only a template which is applied to the posts, it can be changed later.
5 Add content. This can be text, with the ability to choose font, including colour and style and many standard word processing options such as justify (and spell check). You can alo import images.
Having created the content, this can be either saved as a draft, for your use, or published
To change the appearance of the published version, open the blog and click the Template tag. This allows you to add extra features and edit the existing ones, including their position (by dragging them)
Ideas for Family History Blogs
A simple blog of names
A blog for collaboration
A blog for research notes
Additions to the blog by other contributors can be reviewed (if you wish to do so) before they are posted. To view a blog you can go directly to the web address but in addition you can ‘suscribe’ to it so that any addition to it causes a notification to be sent to you
Blog Day
Follow up session to be held on Saturday 21st July 2007 10.30-4.00 in the BerksFHS Research Centre - for more details or to book email computerbranch (at) berksfhs.org.uk
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