UMass Boston Blogs

Step One: Login

1. Make sure you are using a browser compatible with UMB Blogs, which are:

  • Internet Explorer 7
  • Mozilla Firefox 2
  • Mozilla Firefox 3
  • Safari
  • Google Chrome 0.3.154.

2. Select login link on the upper right corner of the home page.
3. Enter your UMB username (firstname.lastname) and your password.
4. You will land on to your dashboard pictured here:

The Blogs Dashboard provides you with access to the blog management functions.

  • Write a blog post – Allows you to create a new post for your blog.
  • Recent Comments – Allows you to view all comments posted to the blog.
  • Change how your blog looks – Allows you to modify the blog theme and appearance.
  • Blog Setup – Allows you to modify the blog settings.

You can also use the navigation panel to access the blog management functions.

Step Two: Write a Blog Post

Not all users have administrative permissions to write a blog post. Your community administrator can restrict users from writing post to all blogs or to specific blogs. The blog author always has permission to create a post.

Blog posts are displayed by date and show on the home page of the blog. You will see a link to write a blog post on the top.

Procedure

  • 1. Navigate to the blog.
  • 2. In the top bar, click “Write”.

Configure Your Post
To start writing you Blog, first configure the Title and then compose the Body.

  • Title – Title of the post. The title is used in the URL to help search engines identify the content of your blog for search engine optimization.
  • Body of your Blog – Text of your post.
  • Tags – Post tags. Tags identify and filter valuable content. Tags to filter content based on topics. You can type tags in the textbox or click “Select Tags” to pick tags you’ve used before.
  • Add Media – Download files to your post so they are accessible by anyone who views the post. Attachments are published as part of the RSS feed for your blog. A common example of how attachments are used is for Pod Casting.
  • Password Protect - You can put a password on your page.

Step Three: Manage Your Blog

You can manage your Blog Posts here.You can also manage mange your pages and create links. The Media Library shows you a gallery of pictures that you have uploaded.

  • A. Posts - Displays all your Blog Posts by published date order. You can search for your Blog Posts too.
  • B. Pages - Displays all your Blog Pages by published date order. You can search for your Blog Pages too.
  • C. Links - You can specify external website links here. These links will appear on you Blog main page under “BlogRoll”.
  • D. Categories - Categories are best imagined as a paper filing system. Each page in the system must be filed away in the appropriate drawer. There are only a set number of drawers, and so each must cover a rather wide blanket.
    • The number of categories should be small. Resist the temptation to add new categories because a long list of them will not be read or browsed by anyone and so, is of no use.
    • Each post goes into one category. The categories are a way of giving a post permanent storage, just as the drawers do. You cannot put one piece of paper into two drawers, and in the same way, a single post should go into a single category.

    • In your blog, categories are best used in exactly the same way.

  • E. Tags - The most common problem with tagging is that it is used for the same purposes that categories are. Your tags aren’t categories. They are complements to your categories. Think of tags as the colorful little page markers you might use to flick back to your favorite pages in a book. The tags don’t describe the book as a whole, instead they describe individual sections of the book.
    • Use the same tags over and over again. The tagging system is useless when the tags you use vary. For instance, if you have a series of posts on writing articles, you could tag them as “journalism,” “writing,” “copywriting,” or a hundred other variations. The important thing is that you choose one of them, and then reuse it on every post you ever write on the topic.
    • Tags do not need to be displayed in the sidebar. Tagging is not a part of your navigational structure, and so it does not necessarily have to be displayed in the sidebar. Why not simply list a post’s tags at the end of the post? The contextualisation will make them much more valuable to readers, and could even be used to replace “Related Posts,” plugins and such.
    • The tag cloud is easy to scan. If you do use your tags in your sidebar, then use the tag cloud. A list of categories is very easily recognized because it is in a list. A list of tags will be clearly recognized as such if it is in a cloud. The cloud works because it fits a lot of information into a small space, and is easy to scan over.
  • F. Media Library - All your media files are displayed here.
  • G. Import - If you have posts or comments in another system, WordPress can import those into your blog. You will have to choose from the given table below which blog service posts you want to import from.
    • Blogger Import posts, comments, and users from a Blogger blog.
      Blogware Import posts from Blogware.
      Bunny’s Technorati Tags Import Bunny’s Technorati Tags into WordPress tags.
      Categories to Tags Converter Convert existing categories to tags, selectively.
      DotClear Import categories, users, posts, comments, and links from a DotClear blog.
      GreyMatter Import users, posts, and comments from a Greymatter blog.
      Jerome’s Keywords Import Jerome’s Keywords into WordPress tags.
      LiveJournal Import posts from a LiveJournal XML export file.
      Movable Type and TypePad Import posts and comments from a Movable Type or Typepad blog.
      RSS Import posts from an RSS feed.
      Simple Tagging Import Simple Tagging tags into WordPress tags.
      Textpattern Import categories, users, posts, comments, and links from a Textpattern blog.
      Ultimate Tag Warrior Import Ultimate Tag Warrior tags into WordPress tags.
      WordPress Import posts, comments, custom fields, pages, and categories from a WordPress export file.
  • H. Export - Export feature will create an XML file for you to save to your computer.This format, which is called WordPress eXtended RSS or WXR, will contain your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags.Once you’ve saved the download file, you can use the Import function on another WordPress blog to import this blog.

Step Four: Design Your Blog

Choose your blog theme here by selecting one of the five themes available. View template options.

TIPS:

  • If a theme does not include top navigation to pages, you may need to add the Pages widget to a side bar so that visitors can navigate to pages other than the blog page.
  • Single column themes display widgets below the main column; depending on the length and number of entries displayed, visitors may need to scroll down to see “sidebars”.
  • Some Theme options instruct you to upload image or CSS files to directories that are not available to users in our multi-user installation. Sorry!
  • Widgets may need to be set for individual themes.
  • Once you set-up a theme, its settings are preserved if, for instance, you tryout a different theme then decide to return to the the previous theme.

You may also add widgets, or blog features/functions, to your blog.

Step Five: Manage Your Comments

View all the comments made on your blog. This is where you approve/unapprove, mark as spam, or delete them.

Step Six: Preview Your blog

Take a look at how your blog looks to viewers.