How to post to your blog via email (or: Moblogging)
1. Click on Settings&Security
2. Click on Moblogging
3.
You should see shortcuts to posting either an article or photo that
point to specific email addresses, for instance:
Main <user+main.7206@moblog.blogware.com>
4. Cut and paste the email address into your email client to begin emailing your articles or photos to your blog.
A great and powerful feature of your new PingWare blog is the ability to upload and host web pages.
If you have a website or page that you want to have in your blog, you'll need to upload all files associated with that web page or site. If you do not have a web page already created, you can create a new page in your blog using PingWare's web page editor (this does NOT require knowledge of HTML).
Creating a web page
1. In your PingWellesley Control Panel, go to Post
2. Click on Web Page
3. Click on Create a Web Page
4. Enter text, images, or links for the page- NO coding is necessary
5. There are two save options: Create a component or Add to a favorites list…
These options will allow you to click on the web page you just created from your blog.
If you save the page in a Component, you will need to add the Component to your Layout once you save the page. If you save the page in a Favorites list, a link to this page will automatically be added to the Favorites list.
6. When you are finished, click Save Page
Uploading a web page or web site (a bit more advanced)
1. In your PingWellesley Control Panel, go to File Manager
2. Under Upload New File, click on Browse… and locate the html page on your computer or disk.
Your web page file will now exist at this URL:
http://[URL of your blog].ping[nameofyournetwork].com/[name of web page]
3. NOTE: If your page has images on it, you will need to upload each image.
Your image files will then exist at a similar URL as your web page:
http://[URL of your blog].ping[nameofyournetwork].com/[name of image]
Consequently, you will need to edit the file paths of each image referenced on the web page before you upload the page. (You will not be able to edit the page once it is uploaded).
If you are maintaing a blog somewhere else and want to bring
it into your PingWare blog, here's how you do it:
Make sure you have registered for a blog with
PingWare. If you don't have a blog with us, send an email request to
help@pingotter.com.
Moving from
Blogger
If you are exporting from
Blogger, log in to the admin area of your new PingWare blog: http://www.blogware.com/admin/index.cgi and go to
the Settings & Security tab on the main dashboard. Under
publishing defaults at the bottom of the page, you'll see an
Import/Export link. You'll see a help link entitled “Importing from
Blogger.” Follow the instructions there.
Moving from Movable Type or
Typepad
If you are importing from
Movable Type or Typepad, follow the instructions for exporting in your
current blog. Then go to the Import/Export menu for
your PingWare blog and import the file you have just exported
from MT or Typepad.
You will need to rebuild your
list of favorites/blogroll. But other than that, your blog should be
ready to go.
There are three steps for setting up automatic email notifications for
your group members: 1) invite members to sign up for Blogware
accounts, 2) direct members to log into the club site, 3)
direct members to the subscription management page for the
blog. Let's cover the steps in more detail.
Step 1.
In order to receive email, a member must have a Blogware user
account. Members who do not yet have an account may sign up by
clicking Create Reader Account on the weblog or by navigating directly
to the signup page.
So
the first step is to send email inviting members to sign
up. If your group already has a mailing list, by all means use
that for sending the invitation. Alternatively, you may use the
Invite User feature in the blog admin site. Use the following
navigation path to reach it: Control Panel -> Settings &
Security -> Content Access Controls -> Invite User. On the
Invite User screen you can paste up to 50 email addresses into the To
field.
The text of the message should direct the user to the
signup page, http://www.blogware.com/users/index.cgi/cmd=signup, and
contain the information in steps 2 and 3 below.
Step 2.
Once a member has signed up and confirmed their email address,
they will need to log into the group site. This is accomplished by
navigating to the group site and filling out the login form, probably in
left-side navigation on the page.
Step 3. Once logged in, members can set their notification options by either following
the Subscribe link at the top of the page or by navigating directly to
the subscriptions area. The URL for the subscriptions area is
formed by appending /blog/cmd=manage_notices to the end of the blog
URL. Hence the subscriptions area for
http://URL.com would be
http://URL.com/blog/cmd=manage_notices
A weblog is an ideal forum for your organization to manage group
activities and members. Blogs are easy to maintain and update. Any
group member who is authorized can add information to the group site.
Members can be added to the blog address book and be notified by email
of updates and changes as soon as they are made. Members who use
RSS newsreaders can subscribe to the group blog feed and see these
updates in their aggregators.
Here's how we recommend managing your group site:
1. Customize the look of your blog. Add your name and contact info. Add your group logo. Add a welcome message.
2. Read the blogs of your club members. We'll
keep you posted with updates about your members who are blogging.
You can then post articles with excerpts and links to their blogs.
3. Feature club members. Post articles that feature what members of your group are doing with their lives.
4. Photos:
It is very easy to upload photos to your group weblog. You can create
photo albums of events and build a nice archive of group photos in your
weblog. You can also feature photos from group members in your blog.
5. Set up categories for your group.
You can create a set of categories in your blog for the kinds of things
you do with your group. These could include events, service clubs
(Alumnae Career Choices Early Support System ACCESS; Alumnae Admissions
Representatives (AAR), Book Awards Support Requested, Center for Work
& Service (CWS) Representatives, International Hostesses, ALANA), other subgroups within your group. The people
responsible for managing these sub groups are assigned posting rights
for their categories.
Your blog can be as rich as your imagination and time make it.
A great way to introduce people to your new blog is to invite them to read it.
To invite readers
1. Click the Settings & Security tab
2. Click on Content Access Controls
3. Click on Invite User
4. Where it says “Invite user to be:” choose “a Reader” from the drop down menu
5. Enter the email address(es) and a personal message (if desired) and then click Send Now
Subscribers, friends and users are different roles that are managed separately.
A
subscriber gets an email notification each time you post a new article
or comment on your blog. You cannot add subscribers yourself, this
prevents people from spamming. Subscribers must add themselves to your
subscription list by logging in (so they first need to get a reader
account) and then clicking the “subscribe” link on your blog. To see a
list of your subscribers click the “View Subscribers” option at the top
of your admin control panel https://www.blogware.com/admin/index.cgi/cmd=view_notifications).
A friend is the lowest level of permissions. You invite a friend by going to the Address Book tab of your admin page (https://www.blogware.com/users/index.cgi/cmd=view_friends)
and she gets an email and must confirm that she wants to be on your
friends list. Once she is on your friends list she will show up in your
list on your profile page if you choose to display it. A friend also is
supposed to be able to see all the information on your profile page
that you have set to display for “friends only”, which is the default,
but there seems to be a bug with that and I couldn't get it to work. A
friend does not get permission to read private categories or post or
modify your blog. For that you have to make her a user (reader, poster
or admin).
To manage users on your blog click “Contact Access Controls” on the Settings & Security tab of your admin control panel (https://www.blogware.com/admin/index.cgi/cmd=edit_access_controls).
Generally a trusted reader can read all categories. A trusted poster
can post to all categories. An admin has full blog privileges. You can
also set user permissions more specifically so that a user can read or
post to some categories but not others.
Q: I changed my layout around. What happened to my dashboard?
A: First, let me reassure you that the administration dashboard link to your blog is always accessible by going directly to http://www.blogware.com/admin. You may want to bookmark this in your web browser so you'll always have it available when you need to post to your blog.
To answer your question: “What happened to my dashboard?”
The link you've been using to access the administration site is part of
a component called “Help for Publishers.” When you were making changes
to the look and feel of your weblog, you may have moved the component
from its “active” state in the original layout either by changing the
layout of your blog from the Three Column layout to a Two Column
layout, or by dragging the component to the “inactive column.”
To see how you've customized the look and feel of your blog, please do the following:
1. Login to your weblog by going to: http://www.blogware.com/admin.
2. Click Look&Feel.
3. Click Layout.
4. Under Layout, you'll see whether your layout is the original “Three Column” (or something else).
5. If it's not in the original “Three Column” layout, simply change the
layout to “Three Columns” by clicking on the icon that corresponds to
it.
6. If you like your current layout, simply locate the “Help for Publishers” component and drag it to a column in your layout.
7. Remember that whenever you make a change to the layout of your blog to click Save.
Here's a screen shot of the Look&Feel>Layout tab:
Notice that the right-most column labeled “inactive” contains
components that you can drag into your layout. You can also customize
the layout of your existing components by dragging them as well.
Q:”How do I embed a link into a sentence?”
A: I assume you mean within an article.
With rich-text formatting enabled, all you need to do is:
1. Highlight the word or words you wish to link and click on the icon that looks like a chain link: 
2. A pop-up message will then prompt you to insert the URL you want to link to; simply type in the link.
However, if you do not have rich-text formatting enabled, please do the following:
1. At the bottom of the Post an Article box, there is a button that looks like this: 
2. Clicking the button will switch the text mode from formatted to HTML.
3. In the HTML mode, locate the word or words you want to link.
4. Add the <a href=”URLoflink”></a> tags around the words, and the link will be set.
5. To see your changes, click the mode button again and the view will switch back to formatted mode.
As for the rich text formatting on PC vs. Mac, there is a setting that
you can simply check or uncheck through the administration dashboard.
To do so, please do the following:
1. Login to the administration site. (http://www.blogware.com/admin)
2. Click Settings & Security
3. Click Advanced
4. Check (or uncheck to disable) to enable Rich-Text Editor box (scroll down towards the very bottom of the page).
5. Click Save Settings
When you set your Rich Text Editing settings, you should be able to use
all the formatting features from any computer with an internet
connection. Be sure to use either Internet Explorer on a PC, or
Mozilla/Firefox on a Mac.
Each element that apears in the sidebar of your blog is called a
component. For example, the Login form is a component, the list of
categories is a component and your photo and contact information
is a component. You may want to create your own components to add an
image to the sidebar of your blog or some explanatory text or a picture
that links to another web site. Creating a component is less daunting
then it may sound. Here are the steps:
1. Upload the image you
want to use. To Upload an image click the File Manager tab on your
admin control panel. Then under “Upload New File” browse for the file
on your computer and click upload.
2. Create the component.
<a
href=”put the URL here between the quotes that you want to link to when
you click on the picture”><img alt=”put the text here between the
quotes that you want to show up when you hover on the picture” src=”put
the URL of your picture here between the quotes” width=”88″ height=”31″
border=”0″ /></a>
The URL of your picture will be your blog URL/picture file name. Here's an example:
<a href=http://pilot.pingwellesley.com><img alt=”PingWellesley” src=http://pilot.pingwellesley.com/logo.gif width=”88″ height=”31″ border=”0″ /></a>
You can play around with the values for width, height and border.
3.
Add the component to your sidebar. Click the “Columns” tab above the
Add Custom Component section. Scroll down and find your new component
in the Inactive list. It will be called “Custom:Button” or
“Custom:Whatever you named it”. Drag it to the left or right column
where you want it to appear. Scroll down and click Save.
That's it. Good luck!
