Newbies guide to blogging (Part Three)

Everybody’s doing it. Blogging’s the thing these days, and you don’t need to be a computer geek to make it happen. In this article I show you how to password protect a post, and I suggest practising blogging before you leave home. [First published October 2006. Some details may be a bit dated.]

This post continues from Newbies guide to blogging (Part Two).

Keep posts private

Before you leave on your trip decide on a password you can use to keep posts private. Anyone in the world can view your blog, but you may wish to write some posts with personal information intended only for family. It’s easy to password protect a post, but your family will need the password to read it.

Tip: think about passwords before you go: you may find it useful to have one password for friends, another one for immediate family members, and perhaps a third for wider family.

To password protect a post

To add privacy to a post look at the options on the right hand side of the window when you’re writing the post. Click on the plus sign beside the words “Post Password” to reveal the password field. Enter a password in that field, and visitors will have to enter the same password to be able to read the post.

Practise at home

Let’s face it, while you’re out there in the world using Internet cafes the chances are high you’ll have to use either Windows Internet Explorer or Firefox to connect to web pages, including your blog. Download Firefox or Flock onto your Mac and use them to practise writing blog posts before you leave home. Then when you’re away you’ll be able to make the most of your limited access to the web to keep in touch with the folks back home.

Tip: Family members and friends can leave comments on your posts. Add them as Users before you leave and they can write private posts only you can read. It’s an easy way to stay in touch.

Take it further

This information will get you started on the wonderful world of blogging, but there are plenty of other features it could be useful to learn about. Make sure you spend some time before travelling looking round the Dashboard and exploring the settings.

Part Four tells you about some choices for editing posts.

Whether you’re a computer geek or not, you will also find the recently published book, WordPress 2 Visual Quickstart Guide (affiliate link), extremely useful. In 304 pages it provides simple step by step instructions, with plenty of screenshots, for both the free WordPress.com blogging service and for anyone who wants to set up a WordPress blog on their own web server. The book was written by Maria Langer, author of more than 60 books for Mac users, and Miraz Jordan, writer. ISBN: 0-321-45019-1.

This article includes Windows screenshots (made on a Mac running Parallels software). This article was first published in Macguide magazine Issue #29 September / October 2006 and may have been modified from the original.

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