Bloggin’ on Bravenet

On top of using outside services like Blogger, you may be able to set up a blog provided by your own Web host. (See Chapter 16 for more information on Web hosting.) Depending upon your Web service account, you may already have a ready-to-go blog that’s easy to set up, perhaps even via a simple control panel.

Although the exact details may vary from one provider to the next, the general process is often very similar. The following sections show you how it works on a Bravenet account (www.bravenet.com).

Adding a blog

Before you can do anything, you need to add a blog to your Bravenet site, of course. Once you’re done with that, you can start playing with the settings and getting your message out to the world.

To add the blog, follow these steps:

1.	In the Bravenet Account Manager, click the Web Tools tab. (See Figure 11-5.) Figure 11-5. The Web Tools tab. [View full size image]
2.	Click the Blog link.
3.	On the resulting page, click the Get Your Blog button.
4.	On the next page, scroll down and click the Continue button. You select the button on the left for free service or the one on the right for paid service, which gives you a few more options. In this example, I’ve selected the free service. You can always upgrade to the paid version later if you’d like.
5.	In the Service Startup Wizard, shown in Figure 11-6, enter a title and subtitle for your blog in the appropriate text boxes. Figure 11-6. Making the initial choices. [View full size image]
6.	Select one of the themes (templates). If you’re not thrilled with any of the three, you can change it later; there are more themes available, just not at this stage.
7.	Select the radio button to either receive or not receive an e-mail message every time someone comments on your blog.
8.	Click the Save and Continue button. This returns you to the Blog Service Manager.

Customizing your blog

Now that you’re a blogger, you’ll probably want to tinker with a few of the settings. I mention in Step 6 of the preceding section that you can choose more themes. Here’s how it’s done, starting from exactly where the previous steps left off:

1.	In the Blog Service Manager (see Figure 11-7), click the Look and Feel link. Figure 11-7. The Blog Service Manager. [View full size image]
2.	At the bottom of the Look and Feel Editor, shown in Figure 11-8, click the Select a Theme link. Figure 11-8. The Look and Feel Editor. [View full size image] Do this first, ignoring the tabs at the top of the editor. Those tabs enable you to specify each part of your own theme design. This means that selecting one of the prepared themes will automatically wipe out any custom theme you’ve created. Unless you’re really good at graphic design, go with the installed themes first.
3.	Scroll down to view the available themes (see Figure 11-9) and click the one you want. Figure 11-9. Selecting a new theme. [View full size image]
4.	You get a dialog box reminding you that you’re about to override any existing theme or settings. Click the OK button to proceed or the Cancel button to abort.
5.	Click the Save tab in the Look and Feel Editor, and then click the Save All Changes button that appears.

Making a post

Now it’s time to get some use out of that blog of yours. After all, what’s a blog without blogging? Here’s how you do it:

1.	If you’ve been following along with the example in the previous section, click the Service Manager link.
2.	Click the Post Entry link.
3.	On the resulting page, shown in Figure 11-10, enter a title for your post in the text box. Figure 11-10. Posting an entry. [View full size image]
4.	Scroll down and type your message in the text editor. (See Figure 11-11.) Figure 11-11. The Text Editor. [View full size image] You can click the Code Editor tab to directly type HTML. Click the Visual Editor tab to type like you do in a word processor. In addition to the sort of buttons common to all word processors (bold, center, add image, and so on), the button on the far top right is a nice touch — it adds YouTube videos to your blog. (See Chapter 9 for more information on YouTube.) There’s also a row of smileys at the bottom that you can add by just clicking them.
5.	Scroll down and, if desired, click the Add Emoticon/Smiley link next to the Mood and/or Music text boxes. (See Figure 11-12.) Figure 11-12. Filling out the bottom portion. [View full size image]
6.	Under Blog Entry Options, you can specify three sets of options: Date and time of the message: If you don’t set the time and date, they’ll be set automatically. Privacy settings for the post: Controls comment access/approval and publicity on Bravenet. Abbreviation parsing: Settings for automatically adding pop-up tooltips to explain abbreviations used in the post.
7.	Click the Post Entry button.