Blogs For You

Archive for the ‘About Blogging’ Category

I have come across some pretty interesting information about laptops.  I do almost all of my work on my trusted laptop and thought I would hand down some computer tips for those of you who may be considering getting one to do your blogging on.  There are literally hundreds of different laptops out there for you to consider before buying one.  Personally, I stick with Dell.  Mostly, because they have some pretty good deals, their service repair guys are really nice, their warranties are worth the price, their shipping is very fast but mainly because I use them at work and get a pretty sweet discount when I buy them through the Employee program.  They also offer programs for people in school.

But no matter which one you choose there will always be a better one next year but don’t wait.  IF you want to be a serious blogger you will need a computer (either desktop or laptop) that is reliable, wireless (mainly for laptops), have enough RAM (onboard memory that allows you to stream videos quickly and have multiple programs opened at the same time), have a fairly large hard drive (this is for those of us who download music, PDF files for later reading, and have lots of digital pictures).  You want to buy the extended warranty early on so that the price is reasonable.  You will also want to have a pretty hefty anti-virus program included.  If your internet service provider offers one of the good ones such as Norton or McAfee for FREE then you will not need the one offered with the computer.

There are a few things that you might need to consider when deciding or a laptop versus a desktop.  Laptops can go with you anywhere you want to go (well obviously not on the water or in the bathtub).  All the newer ones have a wireless modem built in and the software to seek out and connect to FREE wireless services if you happen to in range.  (Next post will be about where to find FREE wireless services).  Modern laptops weigh about 3 to 5 pounds which will help your back out tremendously.  You will need a laptop bag of some sort that is padded for those times when you travel with your computer.  Even just going to the library or the local cafe you should place the laptop in the bag to protect it from scratches and stuff.  You should also invest in a laptop cooling pad.  These little guys can get pretty hot if you use them more than an hour or two at a time.  You should read this post about hot laptops it is pretty funny and true. And finally, if you don’t like the little keyboards all you have to do is hook up your favorite keyboard and mouse into the USB ports and away you go.

Deciding on what your blog is about is pretty important.  Based upon this answer the secret codes (The SEO Compliant words for search engines) are created in the background so that other people can find your blog, read it and hopefully post comments about it.  Once you are established and get regular subscribers you will be able to send out your blog postings to them automatically (we have this function built into our service).  If you are a writer you might want to blog about what you are writing about or when your books will be available for sale.  If you have a band you want to tell your fans where you will be playing in the future as well as upload pictures and/or videos of where you have played before.  If you are a business you can blog about the new products being offered, what services you are adding or removing or even information to help your customers.  Medical facilities blog about health issues while computer services or website creation businesses will blog about issues that are important to their customers.

Unless you have created a blog for just your friends and relatives you want to attract readers from around the globe so make your content interesting.  You want to keep your topics relevant to your website as well as informative and fun.  Make sure you read over your post at least twice to correct any mistakes in grammar and spelling.  Most programs have a built in spell checker to let you know that a word may be wrong but they cannot tell you if you have forgotten a word or your content doesn’t make any sense.  So read through it before your final posting.

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.  (As defined by WIKI)

There are a million different reasons to start your own blog just as there are a million different blogs out there to read and enjoy.  Having your own domain name personalizes the blog to reflect who you are and what you are trying to communicate to your readers.  One of the main reasons for creating a blog is to open a continuous dialogue between you and your readers.

There are no hard or fast rules about choosing between a “website” and a “blog”.  The main consideration is whether or not you will be posting information on a regular basis to your site as opposed to only occasionally making changes to the site.  Blogs are, generally, updated every day, week or month with a 200 to 300 word essay about whatever is being discussed on that day.  They can also have what is called “static” pages or pages of information that does not change but once a year or so such as the CONTACT or PRIVACY POLICY pages.   But the main or home page is the blog postings themselves.  In order to maintain the integrity of the blog and to keep your daily, weekly, etc postings search ready a blog must be connected to a database of some kind.

The plain website has mostly static pages where the information contained on each is rather updated once it has been posted or created.  A website can have a “BLOG” or update page to it but that is not the “HOME” or main page.  A website’s only requirement is that it have an HTML page named ‘index”.  You can create an index page using notepad (if you know what codes to use) or a word-processing program such as Microsoft’s WORD that will allow you to “save-as” html or webpage and it will put in the basic codes for you.  These codes hidden within the document allow an internet browser to see the page.

If some of these codes are unfamiliar it might be wise to take a beginning computer class and beginner internet class at your local college or community school program.  There are probably even classes available at your local library or church as well.

That’s all for now!

Cheers

webmistress