How To Blog

As described in the "Join The Team" link, you don't have to be Einstein to be a blogger, in fact, any old "Yo Yo" can do it!

Below are some simple steps for Posting a Picture with your Topic, Shortening a Long URL Within Your Topic, and Deleting a Topic. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to email me at the address in My Profile.

Adding A Picture to your Post
1. surf the internet to find the perfect picture to illustrate your Headline and/or topic. Make sure the picture is about the same size as the ones you've seen posted on previous threads.
2. right click on the picture and select Properties
3. in the Address line, highlight the URL from the http: all the way through to the JPG or GIF extension and hit Ctrl-C to copy it to your clipboard
4. return to this block and click Post New Thread
5. Mr. Blue has been kind enough to create the standard image HTML sytax as the first line of every new post. Highlight the words ENTER_URL_HERE (leaving the quote marks in place) and the select Edit, Paste or hit Ctrl-V to paste in the URL for the image file.
6. The just create your post starting right after the final ">" on the "img src" line.
7. Use the Preview link in the upper right corner of the Create window to get an idea how you Topic will look when added to the site.
8. If your graphic is too large, return to Edit mode and click the Compose tab in the upper right corner - this will give you a WYSIWYG view of your post
9. click on the graphic and then click on one of the corner anchor points, and drag it toward the middle of the graphic to shrink it down - make sure you drag it proportionally, reducing both the vertical and horizontal size the same amount, otherwise you'll get a circus mirror effect (either tall skinny guys, or short fat ones)
10. When everything looks good, click the Publish Post button


Shortening a URL in your Post
One of the biggest problems with creating new posts is if you want to include a link to additional information (i.e. the source news item) but the link to the story is a mile long. If you just paste it in as a mile long link, it throws of the column spacing of the whole blog site.

To make this work, you need to replace the squiggle bracket charcters shown below (i.e. {}) with the left and right corner brackets that are above the comma and period keys on your keyboard. (I can't type them here since the blog site will interpret them as HTML tags.)

For this example, let's say the link to the story is "http://www.seahawks.com/moses_parts_red_sea.html" and you want people to click a link that says "Pharoh All Washed Up" and get to this story.

1. surf to the source article and copy the URL shown in the address bar of your browser
2. surf back to the blog site and create your new post
3. paste in the long link where you want it to appear in your posting
4. add to the front of the link the following text, making sure to replace the { with the left corner bracket (upper case , key) as indicated above: {a href="
5. go to the end of the pasted in link and after the .html add the following: "}Pharoh All Washed Up{/a}, so the entire line appears as:

{a href="http://www.seahawks.com/moses_parts_red_sea.html"}Pharoh All Washed Up{/a}

NOTE: Don't worry if the line wraps, and remember to replace the {} characters. Also note that there is a space between the "a" and "href" in the commands above.

Deleting a Post
1. click Edit Topic link (be patient, this window takes awhile to load)
2. you'll see a list of all the posts, and the ones YOU created will have a big blue Edit button at the left.
4. all the way on the OTHER side of the line, there will be a Delete link...make sure you have the right posting and CLICK IT!
5. you'll probably get an Are You Sure message, so click OK or YES if you do.


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