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Blogging For Dummies (For Dummies (Computers))
If you want to give yourself a Web presence without spending a lot of time or money, a blog is your answer and this is your guide. Blogs (Web logs) are short, diary-like entries on a Web site that has a chronological, journal format. Fun or informative, but not formal, blogs are easy to set up, maintain, and update. You can share your personal, stream-of-consciousness musings or your expertise on any subject ranging from your family vacation to world peace. This guide helps beginners (even technophobes) get started fast, with the essential info on:
- The elements of blogs, such as entries, sidebars, categories, comments, and index pages
- The different types of hosting services, from free to fee and from “turn key” services that are easy-to-use to DIY programs
- Details on two popular, free “social community” hosted Web services that are ideal for casual bloggers—MSN Spaces and Yahoo! 360
- The scoop on Blogger, a popular free hosted service that has some community tools like the social networks, but is basically blog-intensive
- DIY blogging, covering three of the most powerful and flexible blog programs—Movable Type, WordPress, and Radio Userland
- Hooking into RSS feeds to distribute your blog entries beyond your site
- Choosing a newsreader
- Ways to raise the visibility of your blog and make money from blogging
Complete with step-by-step instructions and lots of screen shots, this guide walks you through everything from setting up your blog and posting your first entry to adding photos, audio, and more. It includes the URLs of lots of sample sites to see to give you an idea of blog possibilities. In addition to the essential how-to, it fills you in on:
- The blogosphere, blog culture and etiquette, snarks, macrologues, and more
- Moblogs that let you post entries remotely using your portable computer, PDA, or cell phone
- Buying a domain through a registrar such as Network Solutions, Register.com, or Go Daddy
- MP3 blogs, vlogs (videoblogs), photoblogging, audioblogging, podcasting, and more
You know you have something to say, whether it’s heavy stuff or just your thought for the day. Make your opinions known. Get your photos shown. With Blogging For Dummies, you’ll soon be blogging with the best of ‘em.
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Good intro for newbie bloggers, not as useful for advanced,
At 368 pgs, Blogging for Dummies certainly fits the “For Dummies” mould.
It is a massive volume, covering a lot of blogging ground. Obviously it’s not going to go into every single area, and I felt the author covered most of the major bases. He’s gone into blogging solutions that are hosted by companies such as MSN spaces, yahoo, blogger, typepad.
He talk talks about hosted solutions (much better in my opinion), like movable type and wordpress.
This is software you can install on your service, and you have freer rein over your blogging solution.
The book also has a section “Ten Blog Engines and Directories”, which is a good start, for a generalist book. In comparison, specialist blogging ebooks like SecretBlogWeapon come with a 176 blog traffic generators. But I think this is a testament to the nature of this product.
“Blogging for Dummies” is a very general product, it’s only intended to give you a brief intro of all the major blogging platforms.
If you are oriented towards profit-oriented blogging, you can look for SecretBlogWeapon (SBW) which only covers WordPress (the most flexible and powerful blogging tool in my opinion). SBW covers adsense, includes optimization procedures for search engine optimization (SEO). Blogging for Dummies tries to cover all the basis, sometimes in the span of a page (which may be a little too brief!)
Specialist books are probably too advanced for pure newbies. Brand new bloggers, especially if they are complete computer klutzes are much better with blogging for dummies.
Pros: covers a lot of ground. provides overview of blogging. explains all the jargon like RSS, XML in simple-to-understand language.
Cons: this books trieds to do everything. focusing on a single platform might be better, especially for experienced users. The book is shallow on a lot of fronts. Perhaps intentionally so to avoid confusion for newbies.
Perhaps a companion volume could be launched to fill in the gaps. It can go more in-depth and provide a deeper understanding. After reading this book, one would still need to do more groundwork to master one of the blogging platforms.
I’d still recommend WordPress.
Andrew Wee
Internet Marketing: Blogging Specialist
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|Good coverage for the right audience…,
I know I’ve been blogging for awhile now, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to review this book… Blogging For Dummies by Brad Hill. Of course, some may say it’s just the book I needed…
Contents:
Part 1 – The What, Where, Why, and How of Weblogs: Understanding Blogging at Last; Blogging Options; Living the Blogging Lifestyle
Part 2 – Starting a Blog Today: MSN Spaces; Yahoo! 360; Finding a Home in Blogger; Creating a TypePad Blog
Part 3 – Installing Your Own Blog Program: The Ins and Outs of DIY Blogging; Running a Movable Type Blog; Blogging with WordPress; Power Plus Ease in Radio Userland; Hybrid Blog Hosts – Power Without the Pain
Part 4 – Total Blog Immersion: Hooking into RSS Feeds; Rules of Blogosphere Citizenship; Blogging for Bucks (or Pennies); Using Your Real Voice – Podcasting; Photoblogging and Audioblogging
Part 5 – The Part of Tens: Ten Blog Engines and Directories; Ten Resources for the Power Blogger
Glossary; Index
It seems that when most people start to blog, they learn a bit about blogging in general and then jump right to a familiar tool like Blogger or MSN Spaces. That’s all well and good, but your style might not be best served by the blog choice you made. Hill does a pretty good job in categorizing the most prevalent blog tools available today, and then giving a basic install/usage overview for each. I was familiar with some of these, but the basics of Movable Type and WordPress were something I hadn’t explored. After reading Part 2 and 3, you should have a pretty good idea of which tool fits your style and your anticipated direction. At that point, you can go online and start diving into your new tool of choice.
Even if you’re a blogger with some history, there’s still a few items here that might have slipped off your radar. I wasn’t aware of the audioblogging technology that allows you to embed a spoken clip into a blog posting. Not necessarily something I want to do, but good to know of. Part 5 – The Part of Tens – is always a good area to find sites you didn’t know about (like a few of the blog search engines and directories). There are a couple of sites that I could benefit from, and I’ll be checking those out…
This is probably a bit more than Uncle Joe would want if he’s asking “what’s a blog”, and the alpha male techno-nerd will likely find it a bit simplistic or light on coverage. But for the average power user or technology person looking to explore blogging, this might just be the broad coverage they need to start to put things into context…
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|A great place to start before joining the blogosphere,
I found this book to be accessible, complete, well-organized, and entertaining. Brad Hill’s conversational style reminds me of David Pogue – it’s like having your funny, fast-talking, slashdot.org-loving techie best friend tell you what to do – a good thing for me, but might not suit people who prefer more technical guidebooks.
In the author’s intro, he goes over the chapters and tells readers what they can skip depending on their level of technical expertise and blog ambition (getting a blog hosted vs. installing the blog software yourself, for example). I’m pretty computer literate (enough so that I was slightly embarassed when I bought the book – it’s my first in the “For Dummies” series). I’ve done a lot of desktop publishing and typesetting, but am a newbie at Web page building. This book was written simply, but was definitely appropriate for my skill level – I read it in a day, and had my blog site set up the day after. I appreciated the simple language, bullet points, and many screenshots.
Other notable features: Hill has separate chapters for each of the major blog services (MSN, Typepad, Movabletype, WordPress), and the information presented is up-to-date (very important for the blog services that updated their software recently). Overall, it’s a good choice for beginners in Web site building. Those with some experience who for some reason ignored the title of this book should opt for something in a more specialized series – one that doesn’t cover everything from blogging and yoga – like the Visual Quickstart series.
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