Welcome to my Net 11 Internet Communications learning blog.
As part of Internet Communications degree we have to keep a learning log of our experiences and findings as we work our way through the course modules.
“Top five tips for new bloggers”
1. Try a Blog site. Try www.Blogger.com, set up a new account and start playing. This is a popular and easy to use Blog site, create a few test pages and see how it works. But stop there!
2. Look for Reviews on Blog Sites. Go to Google and search on “Blog Reviews or Comparisons” read the reviews on the numerous Blog sites available.
3. Test Three Blog Sites. Pick three of the recommended sites in the reviews and have a quick play with them. Take the time to see how they work and what options they have. As part of this process you can edit your entries on-line, several will allow you to edit off-line on your PC and then upload the pages to the blog site.
Remember if you go down one path and put a lot of work into your blog and then find limitations and want to change, then you’ll have to start from scratch again. This testing and evaluation time won’t be wasted.
4. Off-line Editing. This is a much better way to go, look at the code used on the Blog site. Is the code used on the Blog HTML? Can edit it on your PC and then upload to the site? Can you add images to your pages locally and upload them to the Blog as well? Once you have this sorted and tested life will be much easier.
5. Best Practices. Always use best practices when using your Blog. Think of this as a commercial website. It may be a personal account of your experiences on Net 11 course, but it should still have a level of professionalism about it. Suggested reading includes the Bloggers’ Code of Ethics http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php
Footnote / reference other peoples work, remember plagiarism is stealing!
Plagiarism
There is an informative video you must view followed by a short quiz. You must complete both of these. In the world of the Internet where every thing is so accessible and fair game, we must respect and credit others work. The training video and the quiz are informative and they make you think about Plagiarism, copyright and crediting others work. For more information on Reference methods refer to the APA manual
What Blog Site did I use?
I looked at a couple of other Blog sites, and started with Blogger.com. I then I found you could edit on your desktop and then upload to your blog. (That’s great cause you can adjust the size of the editing window for a start. Plus you can use other PC & HTML editing tools etc etc)
However these initial sites used either xml or non-standard code or they wouldn’t allow you to upload images.
Then I found WordPress.com – blog site and Zoundry Raven desktop editor and publisher. This is an excellent combination.
I Love it. Well I loved it once. I hate it now. Especially when you swap between HTML and not so WYSIWYG mode and you loose a whole mornings edits. Not happy Jan!!
(Also it doesn’t handle links on a page to anchors down the page too well, still have to add them manually via the WordPress dashboard.)
w.Blogger also has a free WordPress desktop editor which I am going to try. Will let you know how I go.
Do you like the header picture above? It’s sunrise at Tugan in Qld, I took the photo a couple of years back. I know it’s not the usual high tech theme, however I work in IT and the web and I see “high tech” images every day. I just wanted something inspirational something to aim for!
