"Add a Blog Post" Tutorial

To add a blog...

1. In the "Post Title" text box, type the title of your blog. Don't worry if you get it wrong. You can always go back and edit any portion of your blog at any time.
2. In the large input area under "Entry", type your blog or copy-and-paste it from another text editor (MS Word, WordPad, Notepad, etc.).
3. If you want to dress up your blog, you might consider changing the font/type face (the easiest ones to read online are shown here: Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet and Arial), changing the text size or color, making some text bold, italicized or underlined. You can also choose whether you want your text
   aligned on the left (the most common), centered (usually for headings and titles) or aligned on the right (usually for numbers).
4. You may also want to use bullets (little dots) to make two or more sentences or paragraphs stand out from the rest, or numbers for sentences that must be done in a particular order.
5. And finally, if you are familiar with HTML codes, click the "HTML Editor" tab to type or copy-and-paste your HTML codes. To view your document afterward, just click the "Visual Mode" tab again to see your changes.

After typing the title, typing your text and formatting your text, you are almost ready to post/publish it for others to read. Just a few more steps.

Tags: [Optional] Tags are words and phrases that search engines (like Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc.) use. So, you might want to create some tags to help the search engines find your blog. This is not required.

What date would you like for your post? Select "Now" or select "Choose a date and time" to publish your blog on a future date. For example, you might be writing a blog about Christmas and today's date is July 1st. So, you would most likely want to choose a date in December closer to Christmas. Just click the drop-down boxes and select your month, day and year.

The remainder of the settings are pre-set to the most common and logical choices. You may change them by clicking a different option button if you want.

I recommend you click the Preview button to see how your blog will look when it's published. If there's anything you want to change, click "Back" and come back into the editor and make your changes.

If you are satisfied with your blog, click the Publish Post button. When you do that, the "Latest Activity" feed on the Main page will display to all your friends that you have published a blog post.

Also, if one of the Site Administrators decides to "feature" your blog post, you will receive an email notifying you and/or you will see that activity in the "Latest Activity" feed on the Main page.