Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools

by Cory Doctorow, Rael Dornfest, Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott

Overview

Anyone can run a blog (an online journal). From personal diaries to political commentary and technology observations, bloggers are making their voices heard around the world. Essential Blogging helps you select the right blogging software for your needs and show how to get your blog up and running. You'll learn the ingredients of a successful blog, and then get detailed installation, configuration and operation instructions for the leading blogging software: Blogger, Radio Userland, Movable Type, and Blosxom. After showing you how to acquire, set-up, and run these leading software packages, Essential Blogging takes you through the more advanced features, so that by the time you finish, you'll be up and blogging with the best of them. Essential Blogging covers:

• the important components of a blog and a blog post
• installing and configuring the tools
• a survey of desktop blogging clients
• advice and experience from real-world bloggers
• hosted blogging with Blogger and Blogger Pro
• desktop blogging with Radio Userland
• server blogging with Movable Type
• posting, editing, and deleting blog entries
• adding pictures to blog entries
• syndicating your stories with RSS
• consuming RSS feeds with Radio Userland
• customizing the appearance of your blog with templates
• managing and customizing archives of blog entries
• adding comments to your blog
• self-hosting your blog vs using a blog-hosting service
• going under the hood with the Blosxom blogging system

Written by prominent bloggers and authors of blogging tools, Essential Blogging is a no-nonsense guide to the technology of blogging.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596003883
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/09/2002
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Rael Dornfest is a Researcher at the O'Reilly & Associates focusing on technologies just beyond the pale. He assesses, experiments, programs, and writes for the O'Reilly network and O'Reilly publications. Dornfest is Program Chair of the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, Chair of the RSS-DEV Working Group, and developer of Meerkat: An Open Wire Service. In his copious free time, he develops bits and bobs of Open Source software and maintains his raelity bytes Weblog.

Shelley Powers is an independent contractor, currently living in St. Louis, who specializes in technology architecture and software development. She's authored several computer books, including Developing ASP Components, Unix Power Tools 3rd edition, Essential Blogging, and Practical RDF. In addition, Shelley has also written several articles related primarily to web technology, many for O'Reilly. Shelley's web site network is at http://burningbird.net, and her weblog is Burningbird, at http://weblog.burningbird.net.

is a programmer and the co-creator of Movable Type. With Mena Grabowski Trott, he is a partner and co-founder of Six Apart. He develops all of the backend code for Movable Type, contributes regularly to CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), and has written for Perl.com. Benjamin likes cryptography and Serge Gainsbourg, and he dreams about universal wireless, so he can travel in France.

Table of Contents

Preface; Audience for This Book; Structure of This Book; Conventions Used in This Book; Comments and Questions; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging; 1.1 The World of Blogging; 1.2 Anatomy of a Blog; 1.3 Anatomy of a Blog Post; 1.4 Syndication; 1.5 Blogging Tools; Chapter 2: Desktop Clients; 2.1 The Settings; 2.2 BlogScript; 2.3 BlogApp; 2.4 blogBuddy; 2.5 w.bloggar; 2.6 Slug; 2.7 Radio UserLand; Chapter 3: Hosted Blogging with Blogger; 3.1 How Blogger Works; 3.2 Requirements; 3.3 Your Blog, Quick Start; 3.4 Basic Blogger Settings; 3.5 Managing Your Posts; 3.6 Archiving in Detail; 3.7 Changing Your Account Profile; 3.8 Basic Use of Templates; 3.9 Self-Hosting; 3.10 Browser Shortcuts; 3.11 Blogger Buzz; 3.12 Group Blogs; 3.13 Removing a Blogger Blog; 3.14 Support; Chapter 4: Desktop Blogging withRadio UserLand; 4.1 Installing Radio UserLand; 4.2 Welcome to Radio; 4.3 A Visual Tour of Using Radio; 4.4 Routing or Commenting on Content; 4.5 The Radio Menu; 4.6 Setting Your Radio Preferences; 4.7 Publishing Your Blog; 4.8 Stories Instead of Posts; 4.9 Adding Pictures to Your Posts; 4.10 Source Editing Your Radio Entry; Chapter 5: Server Blogging with Movable Type; 5.1 Why Use a Server-Based Solution?; 5.2 Installing Movable Type; 5.3 Using Movable Type; 5.4 Creating a New Entry; 5.5 Comments; 5.6 Adding a New Author; 5.7 Uploading an Image; 5.8 Syndication; 5.9 The Future of Movable Type; Chapter 6: Advanced Blogger; 6.1 Basics of Blogger Pro; 6.2 The Blogger Template; 6.3 Template Customization; 6.4 Customizing the Archive; 6.5 Adding Comments; 6.6 Incorporating Statistics; 6.7 Automated Blogrolling; 6.8 Adding Support for Syndication; 6.9 Integrating Blogger into an External Application Environment; 6.10 Exporting Blogger Data; Chapter 7: Advanced Radio UserLand; 7.1 Radio, Frontier, and Manila; 7.2 Radio Techniques; 7.3 Backing Up Your Radio; 7.4 Themes, Templates, and Macros; 7.5 Understanding How Radio Works; 7.6 Important Radio URLs; 7.7 Upstreaming; 7.8 Online Resources for Advanced Users; Chapter 8: Advanced Movable Type; 8.1 Changing the Look and Feel of Your Blog; 8.2 Blog Configuration; 8.3 Archiving Options; 8.4 Using the XML-RPC API; 8.5 Security Issues; 8.6 Tips and Tricks; 8.7 More Information; Chapter 9: Minimalist Blogging with Blosxom; 9.1 Requirements; 9.2 Downloading; 9.3 Installing Blosxom; 9.4 Optional Configuration Directives; 9.5 Blogging; 9.6 Viewing Your Blog; 9.7 Editing and Deleting Entries; 9.8 Creating Another Weblog; 9.9 Syndicating with RSS; 9.10 Customizing and Styling; 9.11 Aggregating RSS with Blagg; 9.12 Running Blagg; 9.13 Third-Party Additions; Chapter 10: Blogging Voices; Colophon;

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
Weblogs make it possible for anyone to compete in the marketplace of ideas on an almost level playing field. Of course, once everyone’s blogging, it’ll be harder to get heard above the noise. Now’s the time to get started, if you haven’t already -- and all you need to know is in this book.

Essential Blogging covers everything you need to know to get past the media oligopolies and get your own ideas (or commentary, news, fiction, whims, or whatever) out there. The authors, leading bloggers themselves, share plenty of hard-won personal experience -- starting with a look at what makes a blog post others might want to read (assuming that matters to you).

Then, the authors help you with all the technology choices you’ll need to make. Should you use hosted blogging (as in Blogger Pro)? Desktop blogging (with Radio Userland)? Server-based blogging with the authors’ own impressive Movable Type package? Or maybe the super-lightweight Bloxsom? Whichever you choose, Essential Blogging walks you through accessing the tools, setting up your blog, and managing it on a day-to-day basis. They even cover some “advanced” tools for diving headfirst into the blogger world community -- like blogrolling and syndication, which lets you share your content automatically with bloggers worldwide. Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.