SolveYourProblem
eLearning Series: Blogging
Free Bloggers Guide
( 20 Pages )
Identifying & Choosing
The Right Tools
Bloggers are constantly
discovering new ways to express their ideas through new markup.
There are bloggers who are using the latest state-of-the-art
“visual” web design programs, but few others consider using
HTML code is not a bad idea altogether.
The XHTML family
can accommodate extensions through XHTML modules and techniques
to develop new XHTML-conforming modules. These modules permit
the combination of existing and new feature sets when developing
content and when designing new user agents.
With so many different
ways to access the Internet, the XHTML family is designed
keeping in mind the general user agent interoperability.
Through document profiling mechanism, servers, proxies, and
user agents are able to create best effort content transformation.
This language is both RSS and XML conforming. The content
can be readily viewed, edited, and validated with standard
XML tools. XHTML documents can utilize applications (e.g.
scripts and applets) that rely upon either the HTML Document
Object Model or the XML Document Object Model.
Bloggers may also
use Movable Type for the weblog. Movable Type is a powerful,
customizable publishing system, which installs on web servers
to enable bloggers to manage and update weblogs. This enables
a blogger to hand edit the other parts and pages, including
the Daily Links, in TextPad. Bloggers may use a date format
string for the individual entries, and for monthlies.
Movable Type Installation
is followed by Plugins. There are many to choose from. MT
Plugin Directory and the Movable Type Support Forums are
two resources that can be referred to. Most of the plugins
make users typographically correct and enables them to properly
use curly-quotes, ellipses, em-dashes, and en-dashes. A feature
of plugins combines trackbacks (comments on other articles
from other blogs) and comments into one page. Another use
is to create author comments and addendums in the comments
engine. Few plugins may allow bloggers to add additional
fields, example: using keywords field to create additional
fields. Few others create a collection of links at the bottom
of each individual entry page. Title attributes can be used
with all the links. Movable Type includes a default RSS Feed.
Bloggers may set up individual feeds for each thread and
comments feed by following the naming convention of individual
archives - changing it to an .xml ending. Bloggers may even
add a Subscription Field.
Also, bloggers
may consider using a WebDrive in place of a FTP client. This
tool is used to map FTP and WebDAV servers to a network drive
letter in Windows using remote files like local ones in any
application. Blogger may also consider using validated HTML
4.01 Transitional code with a validated stylesheet.
Blogs demand more
than graphic design and HTML proficiency. They demand extensive
interaction with visitors. So, installing a Discussion Forum
is a must, as it allows communities to exchange ideas and
opinions. Tools that could be considered are database programming,
CGI/Perl scripting, Flash animation etc.
In addition to
this, bloggers may consider having an Accessory Sideblog
- another blog that stores ancillary information and tools
for the existing blog.
Accessory
Sideblog allows:
• Easy updating
• Changes in entries/
information from within Movable Type interface
• Availability
of comments and trackbacks
Bloggers may consider
buying open source weblogging software. These easily installable
software products offer features like: fully-integrated comments,
searching, file uploading and image handling, completely
customizable output through dozens of templates and variables,
multiple author support, etc. For example: few blogs allow
bloggers to provide a template of their page that indicates
where they want your posts to appear. Clicking the "Publish" button
automatically sends their new page to the website where they
want their blogs to appear. Similarly, there are sites that
enable bloggers to place the RSS feed of their blog onto
any html page. For example: bloggers can copy the completed
JavaScript and paste it on any web page they would like to
distribute.
Bloggers can host
their blog on their own as well with any good web-hosting
company. They can choose a good web host, buy space on their
server and host their blogs with them.
The details of
few of the blog creating software products are mentioned
below:
FactoSystem Weblog (ASP based)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/facto/
Facto is a collaborative
web publishing system. The system can be used for creating
personal or group 'Blog' type sites. It is written entirely
in Active Server Pages (ASP) and can use Microsoft Access
or SQL Server as a database backend. Its development status
is : 4 - Beta, 5 - Production/Stable and environment in which
it runs is web environment, Win32 (MS Windows). The intended
audience is defined to be end users/desktop, other audience
and system administrators. The software’s natural language
is English. The operating system that is required is Windows
95/98/2000 and the programming languages used are ASP and
JavaScript. It is mostly used for message boards and site
management.
Facto can be a
customized. One can try coding to "render a blurb in
HTML" to be in a separate file. It relies on the BlurbRS
recordset having the correct field names with the SQL in
some of the other files. Instead of querying the Comments
table every time it displays a blurb. The layout can also
be changed as some people may not require the left or right
columns. A function on the routines page can be created that
displays the blurb as required. The search results page then
needs to be fixed since a different name for the blurb is
used to do this.
InstaBlog
http://instablog.hit.bg/
InstaBlog appeared
as a result of two things: responding to the simplest possible
way to maintain a weblog, and trying out the extremely cool
Perl MSN IM client. InstaBlog functions in the following
manner: it is run as a background process on a machine with
Internet access. With its own Passport identification it
is constantly logged into the MSN instant messenger service.
When something worthy of note is found in the weblog, chat
windows is opened with the InstaBlog and the weblog entry
is typed. The software takes it, adds it to a copy of the
weblog it maintains, and uploads it via FTP to a webserver.
The message should appear on the website specified in config.xml.
The InstaBlog bot uploads three files: the actual weblog.xml,
the stylesheet to display it (weblog.xsl), and an index.html
which redirects to weblog.xml. The software is written in
Perl.
OpenJournal
http://www.grohol.com/downloads/oj/
OpenJournal is
a completely Web-based interface. The software’s features
include: automated file creation; automated index updating;
editing of all files through a Web-based interface; entries
with or without titles and time posted; automated archiving
based on a weekly or monthly format. All done through ordinary
text files and no additional perl modules are needed to run
it. Basically, the software allows the users to keep an online
journal, customize and configure it. All needed to do after
installation is to write in it from time to time. It requires
no third-party, external perl libraries or support programs.
The program itself is relatively small and simple and takes
about 5 minutes to install and another 5 or 10 to customize.
The 2.x versions of OpenJournal make use of the auth.pl perl
script to handle its authentication routines. Other features
of the software include: automatic new file creation, automatic
indexing, automatic weekly or monthly archiving without need
of cron, no messy backend database to worry about, uses plain
text and html files, web-based editing of all files created
without using cookies, encrypted user accounts and robust
authorization, multiuser support, preview functionality,
configuration file separate from main program, templated
construction (easy customization), cross-platform date function
.
GeekLog - The Ultimate Weblog System
http://sourceforge.net/projects/geeklog
GeekLog is a web
content management system suitable for running full-featured
community sites. It supports article posting, threaded comments,
event scheduling, and link management and is built around
a design philosophy that emphasizes ease of use. The development
status of the software is 5 - Production/Stable. It requires
web environment. The software has been designed keeping in
mind the intended audience to be developers, end users/desktop.
The software’s natural language is English and uses OS Independent
as its operating system. The programming language that has
been used is PHP and functions mostly to maintain dynamic
content.

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