1. On your weblog under “Help for Publishers” click “Post an
Article.” You will need to log in using the username and password that
you received by email.
2. Once you are logged in you'll see the Post Article form.
3. Type a title for your article and type the body of your article.
4. Scroll down and click Save.

That's it. Your article is now published on your blog. To see it, scroll up to the top and click View Blog.

A Note About Privacy

While
the system provides sophisticated security for keeping your writing
private, by default your published writing will be public. In fact, a
number of weblog search engines will be notified that new content has
appeared at your address. This is because the weblog network draws its
power from public writing and the serendipity it enables.

If you want only certain people (or only you) to be able to see an article you post, you should post it in a private category.

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The My Photo In Blog and Contact Me components have been pre-loaded
with a temporary placeholder. To change it, please do the following:

Part One: Edit your Profile
1. Log-in to your blog
2. Go to the Administration Dashboard (you'll find the link under Help for Publishers in the right sidebar)
3.
Click on your username at the top left-hand side where it says “My
Profile.” You will be taken to your profile page where you can upload a
photo and add contact info.
4. Where it says “My Photo” click “Browse…” to locate the image file you want to upload on your local computer or disk.
5.
Click “Save Changes” to upload the image. (please make sure that your
photo is in the appropriate file format: jpg, or gif). When the upload
is successful, the image will automatically appear.
6. You can also
add contact information on this page and select whether it will be
visible to everyone or just to people you choose.

Part Two: Customize “My Photo in Blog”

Now that you have added a photo to your profile the next step is to replace the temporary profile on your blog with your own.

1. At the top of the My Profile page click on the Control Panel tab.
2. Click on the Look & Feel tab in the next row
3. Click on Layout in the next row
4. Click on the Components tab at the top of the blue shaded area
5. In the long list of components find My Photo In Blog and click Customize
6. You will see a pop-up window- “Add Custom Component”- with this code in it:

<div class=”component”>
<div class=”componentTopicItem”>
<!– Delete this line or Change the URL on the next line to change the image that appears –>
<div class=”componentContent”><a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
wellesleyalumna',
'Profile', 450, 600);”><img
src=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/wellesleyalumna/thumb.jpg”
alt=”photo”></a></div>
</div>
</div>

7. Look for the fourth line down that says:
<a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
wellesleyalumna/index.html', 'Profile', 450, 600);”>

and REPLACE the username in bold (wellesleyalumna) with YOUR unique username.

Your edited code should now look like:

<div class=”component”>
<div class=”componentTopicItem”>
<!– Delete this line or Change the URL on the next line to change the image that appears –>
<div class=”componentContent”><a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
YOURusername/index.html', 'Profile', 450, 600);”>
<img src=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/wellesleyalumna/thumb.jpg” alt=”photo”></a></div>

8. NEXT, where the code says

<img src=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/wellesleyalumna/
thumb.jpg” alt=”photo”></a></div>

you will need to REPLACE the username in bold (wellesleyalumna) with YOUR unique username.

For example, <img src=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/YOURusername/
thumb.jpg” alt=”photo”></a></div>

Your completed code should now look like:

<div class=”component”>
<div class=”componentTopicItem”>
<!– Delete this line or Change the URL on the next line to change the image that appears –>
<div class=”componentContent”><a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
YOURusername/index.html', 'Profile', 450, 600);”>
<img
src=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/YOURusername/thumb.jpg”
alt=”photo”></a></div></a></div>
</div>

9. Click Add Component.

Part Three: Customize your “Contact Me” Component.

The process for customizing the Contact me component is very similar to what you just did for My Photo in Blog

1. Go back to the Look&Feel tab.
2. Click on Layout.
3. Click on Components.
4. In System Components, locate “Contact Me” and click on “Customize”
5. You will see a pop-up window- “Add Custom Component”- with this code in it:

<div class=”component”>
<div class=”componentHead”>
<!– This line below must be edited: please see “How to customize Contact Me” at http://www.faq.pingwellesley.com–>
<a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
wellesleyalumna/index.html', 'Profile', 450, 600);”>Contact Me</a>
</div>
</div>

6. About 5 lines down, you should see:
<a href=”javascript:openWindow('http://www.blogware.com/profiles/
wellesleyalumna/index.html', 'Profile', 450, 600);”>Contact Me</a>

7. Replace wellesleyalumna with YOUR unique username.

Example:
<a href=”http://www.blogware.com/profiles/YOURusername/index.html”>Contact Me</a>

8. Click Add Component.

That's it! Your Contact Me and My Photo In Blog should now link to your profile photo and profile page.

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For PC users
Your Ping Blog
is best read and maintained using a web browser that can support Rich
Text editing. (Rich Text Format or RTF is a standard formalized by
Microsoft Corporation for specifying formatting of documents.) Internet Explorer and Mozilla are both excellent web browsers that will support Rich Text writing and editing.

Ecto (available for MacOSX and Windows) is also a great alternative work-around this issue. Ecto
is an affordable and powerful blog editing application with robust
features: a Rich Text and an HTML editor with spellcheck and
search/replace, support for multiple weblogs, and full control of your
entries. Click here to learn more and for purchase information

To enable the rich text editor:
1. Click Settings
2. Click Advanced

3. Scroll down. Check the Enable rich-text editor checkbox. 

4. Click the Save Settings button.      

To disable the rich text editor:
1. Click Settings
2. Click Advanced
3. Uncheck the Enable rich-text editor checkbox.  
4. Click the Save Settings button.

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For Mac Users
Your Ping Blog
is best read and maintained using a web browser that can support Rich
Text editing. (Rich Text Format or RTF is a standard formalized by
Microsoft Corporation for specifying formatting of documents.) Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox
are the only web browsers that will support Rich Text writing and
editing on the Mac (and Linux). While it is possible to read and
publish to your blog through Safari, Netscape, and Internet Explorer,
these web browsers do NOT support Rich Text editing.

Ecto (available for MacOSX and Windows) is also a great alternative work-around this issue. Ecto
is an affordable and powerful blog editing application with robust
features: a Rich Text and an HTML editor with spellcheck and
search/replace, support for multiple weblogs, and full control of your
entries. Click here to learn more and for purchase information.

To enable the rich text editor:
1. Click Settings
2. Click Advanced

3. Scroll down. Check the Enable rich-text editor checkbox. 

4. Click the Save Settings button.      

To disable the rich text editor:
1. Click Settings
2. Click Advanced
3. Uncheck the Enable rich-text editor checkbox.  
4. Click the Save Settings button.

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I now start my day with a quick power read of the Internet.
Since I
started blogging and acquired a newsreader (Shrook for the Mac), I
read about 90 blogs, including RSS feeds for
magazines like
Wired and newspapers like The Wall Street Journal. People are shocked
when they hear that I am reading so many things. But it takes me about
half an hour and I find that I can get the news I need for my work and
uncover morsels of valuable knowledge along the way.

I start by reading the 15 weblogs now being written by people
associated with my business. I read Pingwellesley
and a few Wellesley bloggers whom I know and like. Pre-blogging, it
would have taken me at least 10 phone calls or 50 emails to get caught
up.

I then read a collection of personal blogs from
Esther
Dyson, Wonkette, Dave Winer, Andrew Grumet, Steve
Bayle, Howard
Rheingold.
This takes me about ten minutes, as I am scanning headlines and only
clicking through to those things that I think will be interesting or
relevant to my current work. I usually find something that I end up
writing about in my blog. My blog then becomes a central digest of what
I am learning. As I make my way through my day I often refer back to
previously blog entries, so my blog also becomes a reference source.
This saves me the time of having to track down the references from
multiple locations.

I am a Mac fanatic so I read a
few Mac sites, including iPod Lounge
where I can fantasize about iPod paraphenalia. Yesterday I found a
purse/boombox combo where you plug your iPod into the purse and convert
it into a boombox.

To power read the web, you will
need a
special RSS newsreader or aggregator that will allow you to collect and
display RSS feeds. There are many newsreaders available and many are
free.

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Until I switched over to Pingware, the software on which ping blogs are
based, I used the domain name attached to my old blog: 
http://otterlearn.typepad.com/blogkathleen/.  This sufficed until
I realized that I needed to move my blog and then I discovered that I
was trapped.  When I moved to Ping all of my links would
break and all the good google ratings I have earned would be
lost. 

So if you think you might want to move your blog,
we recommend buying a domain name and having us map your Ping
blog to your new name.  To buy a domain name, please link to Name
Alerts http://www.NameAlerts.com.  (The price per domain is $8.95
per year.)  Once you have bought your domain, email us and we'll map your blog to your new
domain. 

Then if you do need to move your blog for any reason, your links will move along with it.

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Technorati is a new search
engine for blogs.  Performing a Technorati search will provide you
with a list of sources that have linked to your searched site or
subject in the last 24 hours. So when I search Technorati for my blog,
I find that I have 80 links from 24 sources.  Technorati calls
these “sources” my “cosmos.”  It is a list of people who are
reading and referencing my blog.  It's always useful to scan this
list.  Many of these people I alreagy know.  But from time to
time I'll find new connections.  I even have one person in my
cosmos who is writing about my blog in French! 

I find it
useful to plug my blog url into Technorati from time to time to see who
is linking to me.  By linking on the cosmos symbol next to a URL,
you can see who is linking to the person who is linking to you. 
This is a nice way to find like-minded souls and start to read their
blogs.  Chances are they are also reading your blog.  Your
cosmos may be bigger than you think.

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Unlike web sites which need programming knowledge to update, weblogs
are designed so that publishers can add different kinds of content without having to know HTML.  While blogs can vary considerably, the basic blog structure will likely contain:

 

A center column where content is posted in reverse chronological order
(with the most recent material appearing at the top).  Blogging
services have easy-to-use web forms for posting content.  Bloggers
can also post using email or third-party universal web clients (like
Ecto) that allow for easy posting to multiple weblogs.  


Organization by category:  
Each post in the center column is a unique and permanent url (in
Pingware, we call this the Permalink), which is often organized and
tagged by category for efficient tracking and referrals.

Links to other blogs:  
Blog posts often contain references to other blogs, news, and files.
These are easily created within the web forms that manage blog
posting.  Blogs also contain trackbacks, which are links of
citations from other blogs to your blog.  


Comments:  Most blogs contain a comments feature that enables people to add their thoughts to your posts.  

Distribution via RSS:  Blogs usually offer an RSS feed, which is a syndicated file that can instantly deliver blog content to subscribers, without them ever having to visit the blog. The content of the blog automatically comes to your
newsreader.  


Photo albums:  Most blogging services allow you to manage and store photos on your blog.  


Profiles:  Your blog usually contains a link to information that you want to share about yourself with your blog readers.

Privacy:  Some blogging software platforms allow you to restrict information on your blog to a limited set of readers.  

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I use my blog as my personal filing cabinet. Since it is so easy for me
to hyperlink to things on the web in my blog, I will post in my blog a
reference to something I've found that I may want to go back to later.
I then use the search window to quickly retrieve old stuff. My
colleague Bill Ives, who is writing a book on blogs, explains how
he uses his blog for filing as follows:

Now,
I am using my blog for many notes and associated documents (mostly
annotated) and links. I frequently go back to it for my own research.
Even if no one read my blog, it would still be worth the effort for
this personal Knowledge Management reason. I also can send a link to
others to share information and they have the context.

I store all kinds of stuff in my blog: notes on
books I've read or am reading; music lists; references to articles,
hymns
of praise to my Ipod and husband. And I do go back to very
often to search and read what I've written. It helps me remember what I
already know.

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My very smart colleague Steve Bayle, (whose blog
on start-up companies
is required reading for any of you budding entrepreneurs out there),
came up with the best way I've heard of describing trackback: 
“It's not what you know.  It's not who you know. 
It's who
knows you.”  (Feel free to use it at your next cocktail
party.) 

Trackback is a wonderful feature
built into
blogs that lets you know (via email) any time someone has cited your
blog in their blog.  So Steve will get an email from trackback
telling him that I have cited him here.  In that email, he'll
get
a link that takes him back to this post and a short excerpt of
it. 

Trackback is enabled on your blog as
a default so
when people start citing you, you'll know it.  And all of the
trackbacks to a particular post are collected in one place so if you
really hit it big with something you write, you can track the multiple
trackbacks. 

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