Publishing a Blog with Blogger: Visual Quickproject Guide

by Elizabeth Castro

Book Overview

If you want to start blogging fast but don't want to get sidetracked by the details, then you need a Visual QuickProject Guide You don't need to know every feature---you just want to know how to get... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0321321235
• ISBN13: 9780321321237
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Peachpit Press
• Length: 127 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Great Book for Beginning Bloggers

***** This book is very visual, lots of fun, and easy to read and understand---in short, perfect for the beginning blogger. It is the exact opposite of a reference manual, and thus is very hands on. Note that this book is only for people who want to use Blogger, which is free, to publish their blog. If you don't know what you want to publish your blog with, you like the "free" part, and you're not a business, you probably will be very, very happy with Blogger. So this would definitely be the book for you. It is only 127 pages, so it's not overwhelming to read. You can easily go through it over a weekend and get your blog up and running. If you have HTML or XHTML experience, you'll find lots of good things, too, so slightly more experienced bloggers may still pick up a few tips, like how to change their header on a template or how to syndicate their blog. If you are a geek, you won't need this book. You'll just log onto Blogger and think it's "intuitive" and be able to do everything. However, if you're like me and get stuck a lot, even with so-called "intuitive" software, you'll love this book. Even though this book was published in 2005, and yes, Blogger is in a new version, I haven't found any problems applying what is in the book. None at all. The new version of Blogger just does more things for you; everything in the book still needs to be done one way or another. So it's doesn't make the book dated as far as it's utility goes. If you're really a beginner (which is who this book is for) you might not even notice. There are pictures throughout of what the screens look like, so instead of TELLING you what to do and letting you figure it out, the book SHOWS you what to do and you just follow along. It keeps things as simple as possible. Highly recommended for beginning bloggers. *****

Direct and Easy

I really thought this book was great, showing and giving more information than Discovering Computers. I recommend the book Publishing a Blog with Blogger for those who want to make a blog fast. Chapters: Introduction- talks about what a blog is and how it works, what tools you need, and offers additional help, along with how to use the book. 1. Starting your blog- tells you where you have to go, set your account, name your blog, choose a template, viewing your dashboard, and signing in and out. 2. Writing your blog- tells you how to get down to the writing. How to add ,edit, and your posts, linking blogs, saving and publishing your draft, and formatting and your pictures. 3. Bloggoing from afar- tells you how to blog an email, blog from your toolbar, set up and label audio blogger , and also blog on your cell phone. 4. Personalizing your blog- tells how to add the description, more about templates and picking one, adding links, removing and renaming sections, adding your previous posts, changing headers and adding footers, unifying your color scheme, saving ,republishing, and backing up the templates , and changing the dates and time zone display. 5. Telling others about yourself- tells how to view and edit your profile, add photos to your profile, adding general info., blurbs, and searchable bits, searching others profiles and how to format your "about me". 6. Getting others to contribute- How to leave, view, allow, delete, stop, hide, and bar comments, adding and removing members, formatting members posts, and joining a blog. 7. Hosting your blog yourself- Tells you how to get a web host, web domain, switching to your FTP, FTP settings, testing, posting, and adding photos to your FTP'd blog, and removing you navbar. 8. Getting the word out- Shows how to List your blog, announce new posts, syndicate your blog, offer link to site feed, and how to index you blog. Summary: In Publishing a Blog with Blogger, the author helps you start a blog fast. Without any of detail that might side track you. Shows you how to set things up step by step. It seems to be very easy to follow with colorful pictures and brief description on the steps you take. Anyone can start easily with this book.

All you need to know to blog using Blogger

I have been writing on my blog using Blogger since 2002, so I am very familiar with almost all the options it provides you with to get your word out there in the blogosphere. Yet, I was able to pick up numerous new things when I read this book by Elizabeth Castro. It goes from the very basics that you'd need in order to get off the ground, all the way to incorporating audio into your blog, blogging via e-mail/telephone, customizing your blog, hosting it yourself and much, much more. It's incredible the amount of useful information that the author was able to pack in a little over 100 pages. As an experienced Blogger user I highly recommend this title (and of course, I recommend Blogger as a blogging platform).

Great Short Cut to Learning about Blogger

This book is like an instruction manual that comes with a new camera, but much better. Large color photographs of Blogger.com's pages, along with clear instructions, helped me navigate the high seas of blogging. Castro shows you every aspect of your blog - launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I'd break something accidentally, let's say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created. Castro wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book's illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes. Taking a few hours to study Castro's crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.

Fast And Easy Way To Become a Blogger

A blog or weblog is a great way to get started on the web and Blogger.com from Google is one of the most popular software for creating weblogs. In her book, Elizabeth Castro assumes that this may be your first web project as she walks you through the basics for creating a blog at Blogger.com. First, she gives you an overview of Blogger.com, what the software does, and why she chose it as the subject for her book. After she introduces you to the Blogger Dashboard (the control panel where all the work is done), Castro shows you how to open a Blogger account, give your weblog a name and choose a template. The template does all the work for you when creating your weblog pages. All you need is the content that you want to publish and the template places everything in the correct spot on the webpage. Castro does a great job explaining all of this with step-by-step instructions and lots of illustrations. Once you have posted your first weblog entry, Castro moves on to more advanced Blogger features such as working with the template tags to customize the look of your blog, how to control the members and comments features, how to post an entry by email and how to use Audioblogger to post an entry via the telephone. Now that you have your weblog ready for the public, Castro discusses hosting your blog through Blogger's BlogSpot hosting or on your own server. Finally, she shows the many ways to publicize your blog including email and site feeds. Elizabeth Castro has written many other Visual QuickStart Guide books for Peachpit Press.