Simple as falling off a blog

Websites that are easy to update are just 10 minutes away.

The best websites are constantly evolving, with new content being added to keep readers coming back for more.

The trouble is, keeping a website up to date can be a fiddle. At best you have to open up your web page authoring program and amend your pages there, before uploading them to your ISP. At worst you have to delve into the raw HTML code that makes up the page, and change it all by hand. You might get better with practice, but it is still a deterrent.

One solution to this problem is the weblog, or "blog". A blog is a fairly simple web page which has short, diary-like entries added in at the top. This is fast to produce, makes it clear when you have updated the page, and keeps the older material below so infrequent visitors can catch up.

Blogs are now hugely popular, for all sorts of subjects. Some review other websites, while others exist as a centrepoint to an online community of interest. Others are used to keep colleagues in touch with each other, or manage projects. There are also a huge number that contain vaguely confessional musings - a new web style which for many has come to define what a blog is. A good example of this form is the Daily Brad at www.bradlands.com/dailybrad.

Blogs are, in short, hugely versatile. And, to make things even easier, there is a web service that makes setting up your own blog a 10-minute process. The blog can then be incorporated in your own website, or posted on a special server.

Blogger is the service used to create the Daily Brad and thousands of other blogs across the net. These are the 10 simple steps to setting up your own.

1 Register with the site.
Happily, Blogger does not demand too much information. Go to www.blogger.com and fill in the Sign Up! box in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. You'll arrive at another screen that asks for your name and email address. After you complete that screen, you'll be returned to the front page.

2 Click on Create a Blog
You will then be asked to name your page, and provide a description. You will be able to amend these later, if you want. You will also be given the option to advertise your blog in public, although if you choose "no" it will not be completely secure - just unadvertised.

3 Choose a location for your blog
Blogger.com then asks if you want to have your blog put in its own home at the free, but advertising-supported, Blogspot.com. This is the easiest option for beginners; you can always move it later if you want. If you choose this option, you will be asked to choose a "subdomain" for your website - this will form the unique part of the web address of your blog (See www.yoursite.blogspot.com) You might find popular words are already used, so this might take a few attempts. When you have chosen an acceptable name, you arrive at the template screen. Move straight to step 4.

The alternative for the more experienced web master is to have the blog incorporated in your own site. If you already have a website and know how it was set up, this is the neatest option. You will need to tell Blogger.com the FTP address of your site, the file path for the blogger page, as well as the file name and eventual URL of that page. You will need to enter further server details on the settings screen, off the editing screen (see panel).

Note that Blogger will not be able to upload its pages to your webspace if you use a webspace provider which only allows you to update your pages when connected to their dial-up service. Possibly for this reason, Blogger is known not to work with AOL's free web space.

The simplest workaround, apart from getting new webspace that allows FTP access from anywhere, is to use Blogger's own servers to host your blog, and create a link to the blog from your site.

More HTML-savvy readers could, alternatively, create a framed page on their site which calls up the blog page held on Blogger's servers.

4 Choose a template for your blog
Pick a basic layout for your page from four options. Click on Finish!

5 The Blogger editing screen
You now arrive at the page from which most of the work is done for your blog. In the top half of the screen is the input window, where you type what you want to appear on your page. In the bottom half of the screen is a preview window, which shows what your entries will look like when published.

6 Type your first entries
To get your blog started, type your first entry in to the editing window. See the panel on this page for an explanation of the various buttons on this screen.

7 Creating web links and headlines
It is possible to add HTML tags to your entries, which can do things like create links to other web pages and create larger text for headlines. For instance, to get larger text simply type "This is a headline ". To create a link, type: "Here is a link to my website ". The word "website" will be a clickable link.

8 Preview entry
Click on the post button to see how your new entry will look.

9 Amending entries
Click on the [edit] link at the end of the entry you want to change.

10 Finished entry
When you are happy with your first weblog, click on the Post and Publish button. Your weblog will be available for the world to see!

This, of course, is only the beginning. The beauty of Blogger is that it starts out easy, but allows you to get as complicated as you like. You can change the templates to create a more sophisticated look, for instance. Blogger has a useful help section - just click on the help button in the editing window.

Buttons

The editing window has several important buttons

Posts brings up the main editing screen

Settings allows you to change the important information for your site, like where it is to be published. You can also enter and amend server details, including the username and password, if you are FTPing your pages.

Template allows users more expert in HTML to customise their own blog templates.

Archive allows you to archive, or republish, parts of your blog.

Team allows you to set who has access to edit your blog - useful if you want several people to be able to post to the blog.

My blogs allows you to switch between blogs, if you have several.

Post takes the words you have typed in to the top box on the editing screen and puts them in the preview pane below, showing you how it would look when published.

Post and Publish both updates the Preview pane, and uploads your new words to the blog that can be seen by passing readers.

The Guardian, Thursday 5 April 2001
Neil McIntosh