CREATING AND PUBLISHING WEB PAGES – BLOG

 A blog is a discussion style site used by non-technical (or technical users) users for creating personal web pages. Blogs are similar to an online personal diary and simple to use.

You can use a blog to convey messages about events, announcements, news, reviews, etc. Blogs are usually managed using a web browser and this requires active internet connection. You can also use offline blog software to create content first and later publish the content when an active internet connection is available.

There are hundreds of websites that offer blog service for free. Some of the popular blogs include:

• www.WordPress.com

• www.blogger.com

• www.blog.com

• www.weebly.com

• www.blogsome.com

CREATING A BLOG ACCOUNT

In this session, you will learn how to create a blog account in WordPress. WordPress is free web service that you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. WordPress has support for “themes” for customizing the design of a blog. Themes can make the blog or the webpage look attractive.

• Before you start using a blog, a blog account is required. To create one, you need a web browser and an internet connection.

• Open the Web Browser.

• On the address bar type https://signup.WordPress.com/signup/. You should now get to a page with the fields Blog address, Username, Password, Email Address and Language.

• Blog Address: You must provide a unique address to your WordPress Blog. This is the address which others will use to view your blog.

• Username: You should choose a username for managing this blog.

• Password: Securing your WordPress blog account with a strong password is important. A combination of uppercase and lowercase letters with some digits along with symbols would be a strong enough password. You need to enter the password twice.

• Email Address: You must provide your Email Address here. An activation link will be send to you from WordPress after you click “Create Blog”.

• Language: You can choose your own language for blogging from the list given.

• Click Create Blog.

On doing so, you will be sent an email for activating your blog account. Open your email and click on the activation link. Once you click Activate Blog, you will be redirected to your WordPress Blog Account and you should see a web page similar to the one displayed below.

Now the blog is ready for use. You will be presented with the address of your blog as displayed in the web page above; you can either double click on the link or type the address manually in the web browser. Either action takes you to the homepage of your blog. Once you have created a blog, you need to submit content that you want others to view. This process is called posting content.

• To create a post, click New Post. A Window similar to the one displayed below appears.

• Title: You must provide a title for your post; choose a tile that this post will focus on.

For example, “School Annual Day Function 2012”. Using the rich text box, you can type content that you want others to read.

- Once you have finished typing the content, you need to publish the post for others to see.

- Click Publish Post to publish your content. To view the post, you can type the blog address in the address bar of the web browser, you should see your blog along with the post. You can also add photos, videos, etc. to the blog using the options available in WordPress. You can comment on posts published by others. Usually, the comment option is available towards the end of the post. Look for options such as Leave a comment, Leave a reply, etc. in the blog to comment. For example, in WordPress the comment box is located below the post and labelled as Leave a reply.

• In the Enter your comment here... text box, type your comments about the post.

• In the Email (required) field, type your email address.

• In the Name (required) field, type your name.

• In the Website filed, you may type your blog address (Optional).

• Once you have typed the content in the comment area, review carefully and Click Post Comment.