"How-to's" of Blogging

[buckland]

I have only written three blogs, on three trips....and those were done by the seat of the pants method. Instead of learning all about the "Blog Manual" ...I, like many men just jumped in...why read directions? That is why it takes forever to do simple tasks. I figured out a way to make it work but what I know is certainly way down there. There are those of us who will read the manual first and be very happy and confident about what they are doing...then there folks like me who are on a wing and a prayer!

Okay so what is this thread about? I thought it would be a good idea to have a place where people who know the answer to a vexing problem could help out those struggling to get their blog working. Like Doctor Electric... who is there for those pesky questions about stuff that sparks.... this could be a place where those in the know ....share that expertise about Blogging!

I have managed to write posts and publish photos... a video or two. Setting up "themes' and "layout designs" gets into the more sophisticated Blog set up. Then there is the time when you want to go back and fix stuff... or you want to combine a few blogs ( because you were a novice and didn't know you could have multiple trips on the same blog spot!) ...bringing all the trips into one blog. There are many areas where having a place to ask a 'how to' question might be helpful. Of course this could all backfire and just frustrate the explainers!

There are different Blog platforms (think of them as programs) Google's Blogger, Word Press Blogs (both free in their simple form) and others. Currently I use Blogger but hope to eventually learn how to move them to Word Press as I have that on my home server. But for now I am on the basic level.

For those who have set up blogs for travel reports (saves a lot of communicating as friends and family can all look at the same place .... do you won't be on the hook to do individual communication while traveling)
It would be great if they could post a link so folks can see various set ups and perhaps ask a question of how that was done.

So I'll just put this out there and see what happens. No question is ever too stupid!

https://wordpress.com/create-blog/

https://www.blogger.com/about/?r=1-null_user

 

[goinoregon]

fyi - enjoyed your posts, or blog, whatever you did !

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Rob the idea is off to a good start IMO.
Thanks I am sure this will be of great help to a lot of us.
Frank

 

[buckland]

Thanks to both.... Hope it might help those on the fringe of giving blogging a try. I will say it is fun to go back to a chronological trip description with photos. Like reliving the actual trip.

 

[buckland]

For those who are thinking about having a blog record of a trip.....one weird thing I discovered is the blog page (like a web page) one goes to is the latest posted page. That means that it is not at the start of the trip. Like going to a movie watched on Netflix you enter at the last place you were or at the last place the blogger was. To start at the trip's beginning one has to click on "previous post" to go back in time to the start. Sometimes I send a friend a link to the blog I send the start of the trip link not where I am.
SEE?! there are these weird counter intuitive things about blogs.
So if I put my link below to my blog it will go to the last page...,.where the trip ended.
If I copy the link of the first page of the blog to share I have to tell the person to click on the button on bottom to get to the next chronological post.

Below is an example : the first link is to my trip blog to Alaska..... it is at the end of the trip.
http://alaskan-yukon-roadtrip.blogspot.com

the second link is to the first page of our blog ...just starting out. It is my first posting
http://alaskan-yukon-roadtrip.blogspot.com/2017/05/preparations.html

I have tried to reverse this set up but it is above my pay grade... maybe later.

 

[ski3pin]

I have only written three blogs, on three trips....and those were done by the seat of the pants method. Instead of learning all about the "Blog Manual" ...I, like many men just jumped in...why read directions? That is why it takes forever to do simple tasks. I figured out a way to make it work but what I know is certainly way down there. There are those of us who will read the manual first and be very happy and confident about what they are doing...then there folks like me who are on a wing and a prayer!

Rob, thanks for starting this thread.

Rob, pretty much how I started ours, jumped into the deep end of the pool. My biggest issue has been formatting of text. I'm most successful if I do the narrative, links, and photo number in a MS Word document and then copy and paste into blogger. Then I add the links, photos, and edit.

Link to Julie and my blog is in the signature below.

 

[buckland]

Thanks for your thoughts Monte. I too write first in Pages (Mac) then copy paste it in as I have made formatting mistakes and really screwed things up and couldn't back out! Good to have a back up copy. Things like managing photos and video's required a lot of poking around and trying things out. I eventually learned a method....a method in that it works for me and I have no idea if it is the fastest or correct method. Sometime I learn by error too... that's how I figured out how to enlarge photos, hit the wrong button and bang. Here is a link to one of my trip's blog. I still hadn't realized how to set up the replies to comments so I only later went back to reread and saw them. So here is a blanket apology to all who did write comments and I missed them! HA! Live and Learn! Again my link gets one to the end of the trip.... scroll to bottom and hit previous posts.
https://canadian-maritimes.blogspot.com

 

[ski3pin]

For those who are thinking about having a blog record of a trip.....one weird thing I discovered is the blog page (like a web page) one goes to is the latest posted page. That means that it is not at the start of the trip. Like going to a movie watched on Netflix you enter at the last place you were or at the last place the blogger was. To start at the trip's beginning one has to click on "previous post" to go back in time to the start. Sometimes I send a friend a link to the blog I send the start of the trip link not where I am.
SEE?! there are these weird counter intuitive things about blogs.
So if I put my link below to my blog it will go to the last page...,.where the trip ended.
If I copy the link of the first page of the blog to share I have to tell the person to click on the button on bottom to get to the next chronological post.

Rob, in regards to this issue, here's a possible workaround I've never tried so do not know if it will work. When you go to a post edit, on the right is a publish date. Perhaps you can change the publish date on each part/post to put them in the order you'd want.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

I would like that also,even for my own rereading of my posts.
That work around sounds like it could work.
I'll give it a try. What do I have to loose,ha ha the whole story.
Thanks.
Frank

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

I am missing something here.Not able to get to post edit.
I am not finding post edit.

Frank

 

[ski3pin]

I am missing something here.Not able to get to post edit.
I am not finding post edit.

Frank

Frank, google.com is the home page on my browser (Firefox). I'm signed into my google account (gmail and such). In the upper right of the google page (right of gmail) is a square with nine dots. Left click on that and select blogger. Click on posts in the left column. A list of your posts - most recent at the top - should be displayed. Click on a title to edit.

 

[buckland]

Hell's bells.... good question Frank... Monte just pointed me in a new direction!
Are suggesting changing the publishing dates to make it flip to reverse order?

 

[ski3pin]

Hell's bells.... good question Frank... Monte just pointed me in a new direction!
Are suggesting changing the publishing dates to make it flip to reverse order?

That's what I'm suggesting trying. I've not done it. Will it work? Try it and find out.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Thanks Monte .Got it. I changed the published dates on my 4 part Alaska 2016 trip.
Just did as per your instructions ,changed the dates on all 4 posts making the
part 1 a date newer on the calendar then part 2,3,4.
It worked now when you view the trip report it starts with part 1 and continues through 2 3 4 in the proper order.

I only have one multi part report,but in the future if I post multi part reports I'll just make sure the dates are in an older order.

Rob I am glad you started this thread. It's already been a help to a bonehead like me.
Thanks.
Frank

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

What it does now is move the posts to the top of all my posts,
but they are at least in chronological order.

I think the blogger program sets the date when you start the new blog post.
Don't know if there is any way around that.
Doesn't really matter though.
Thanks for all the info.
Frank

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Hell's bells.... good question Frank... Monte just pointed me in a new direction!
Are suggesting changing the publishing dates to make it flip to reverse order?

Just did it on my 2016 4 part Alaska report and it worked.Now they are
in chronological order.

I am glad you started this thread Rob.
It already has been a help.
Frank

 

[buckland]

Calling all boneheads!... we'd get a big group. It is an interesting way to go. In that I would keep the dates I posted in the actual post at the start and then leave the trip blog alone until the trip is over.... assuming it is written on the road say like Tennessee to Alaska did. After the trip is done go back and change the publishing dates to create a chronological timeline....easier to review from then on. Now Boneheads are Brilliant! You'd think with all the money Google has they could get one person to add the option of reverse timeline.

Six years ago I did a big search on it and there were folks who can write commend script in Terminal like they are writing a grocery list. I found some of those scripts and though I have worked a bit with them in little projects there was no way I would start messing with it... I would I know completely screw it all up. This way ..... TADA ! ...done. Not a bad day's work there Monte!

 

[buckland]

Update... as it is SNOWING here ... sitting by the fire and I went through the Alaska trip and put the real date on each page then went back and put new published dates (starting with Jan 1) ... took about 20 minutes... tada! It worked so much easier on the person reading through. I have some next improvements that I want to try a few things first before posting anything else. One little bit of advice: I found it easier to change date on the typed date rather than the calendar ... double click the Update button and then the back arrow to select the next post to edit.... went quickly.

 

[rubberlegs]

I do the narrative, links, and photo number in a MS Word document and then copy and paste into blogger.

Most of my web pages are hand-coded, but I do WordPress posts for a couple of organizations. When I copy from someone's text into a WordPress blog, there's a pesky new line feed at the end of every line. WordPress thinks they are paragraph markers, which display wonky. So I have to hand-edit the end of most lines, deleting the new line and replacing with a space. Maybe it's because I skip a step, and let my email program display the Word file instead of loading into Word. Anyway, do you have any trouble with this?

One of the really great parts of your website is your geographical locations. I've used it dozens of times. Is that all done automatically or do you carefully craft that page? Just know that we appreciate that work!

 

[buckland]

There is the one small issue the publish date won't correct ...and that is the order of the photos if they, as on mine, cover a few days time. No big deal but, there ya have it.