teatime - intro to blogs

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Installing and Managing a WordPress BlogTea Time Talk - October 9, 2008

Helmut Doll

Department of Instructional Technology

Bloomsburg University

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Do you maintain a blog?

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What is a blog?

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Web site vs Blog- Blog uses a template page and displays ‘posts’ from the database.

- blog is organized by time stamping the posts

- blogs allow commenting

- blog content can be updated easily

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Why blogging?Collaboration/Social Web

http://ocd2008.blogspot.com/

Easy updating/Currency

http://www.elearningpost.com/

?

http://suburbdad.blogspot.com/

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Some uses of blogs at universities

University Bloghttp://blogs.multnomah.edu/university/index.php/about

Department Bloghttp://sdsugeology.blogspot.com/

Administration Blogshttp://oregonstate.edu/admissions/blog/

Faculty Blog

http://law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/

Course Blog

http://www.it.rit.edu/~ell/320/320-081/

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Where do you start - choices

control/flexibility

Work required

simplicitylack of control

Hosted BlogSelf-hosted

BlogAuto-install@ web host

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Hosted Blog options

http://wordpress.com/

https://www.blogger.com/

http://www.livejournal.com

http://www.typepad.com

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Default blog in wordpress.com

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If you are interested in learning more about hosted blogs

Tea time October 30

Create a blog with wordpress.com if you want to try yourself during tea time

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Auto install at web host

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Auto install at web host

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Self-hostingdownload and install the blog application from the companies

commercial or open source

requires an account with a web host

e.g. (not tested) http://www.webhostingchoice.com/

host needs to offer PHP, mySQL (for WordPress), PERL for others

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Self-hosted optionshttp://www.wordpress.org

http://www.movabletype.com/

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or

?

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Advantages and disadvantages of self-hosting a blog

+ complete control over installation

- updates have to be installed by you

+ plug-ins, more themes available

- some server, database, PHP knowledge helpful

+ access to all files and option to make modifications

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If you are interested in learning about self-hosted installation

Tea time October 23

Download and install Portable XAMPP on a Flash drive so that you can do the process yourself and test.

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Options

private post

sticky post

categories and tags

Posting to the blog

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Categories vs. Tags“Categories organize, hierarchically. Tags need not. Tags provide meta-information, Categories need not. Tags cross-connect, Categories do not. By cross connect, I mean, when you go looking for posts tagged with “Flickr? on technorati, you find posts from various sources, all about Flickr. Now if you go searching for posts tagged with “administration? in technorati, you will find everything from system administration tips to posts regarding the NASA, the NSA, and general verbiage - largely due to poisoning from people who can’t get the difference between tags and categories straight, for the most.”(Tags are not categories by Carthik Sharma)

also http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2006/03/01/tags-are-not-categories-got-it/

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Trackbacks

“In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, "This is something you may be interested in." To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.” (SixApart)

http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Managing_Comments

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First actions after installation

Choose a new theme for your blog

Hosted: Choose in admin panel

Self-hosted: Upload the themes files to your wp-content/themes/ folder. Activaye in the theme selector of the dashboard

Choose favorite plugins

Upload (ftp) to wp-content/plugins/ folder. Configure in dashboard.

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Managing the blog

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Managing the blog

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Managing the blog

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Managing the blog

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Related itemsBlogging and search engines

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