EDAD660 (2010)

This brief tutorial will walk you through how to embed a widget on your blog that can play any podcast RSS feed.

1. Find a podcast RSS feed – copy it using Edit->Copy
2. Visit http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/media
3. Paste in the RSS feed link in the box labeled “Playlist”
4. Click “Get Widget”
5. Copy the HTML code and paste it onto your blog as HTML code

In class I mentioned that a podcast is nothing more than an RSS feed that contains at least one link to an audio file.  Once you have created an MP3 file using Audacity (see this tutorial) you can easily use your blog to create your own podcast.  Here’s how:

1. Open up your blog’s dashboard
2. Create a new post
3. Give your post a title
4. Click on the ‘Add Audio’ button
5. Upload your MP3 file
6. When this finishes, click on the ‘File URL’ button and then click on ‘Insert into Post’
7. A hyperlink should appear in your post.

That’s it!  People can now use the RSS feed for your blog to subscribe to your podcast.  The feed URL is usually located at the bottom of the page, but if it is missing you can add it back in by enabling the ‘Meta’ widget.

Keep in mind that podcasts created in this way have a few limitations, including:

1. At most, you can only have one audio file per post
2. WordPress limits the maximum size of file uploads.  Currently this is set to 5mb on globalblogs.org

If you want people to be able to play your MP3 file without having to subscribe to your podcast feed you can provide a MP3 player directly on your post.  Here’s how:

1. Make sure that your post is published
2. Visit your post and right-click on your audio file – copy the URL to the file
3. Visit this widgetbox page:  http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/mp3-player
4. Paste the URL into the ‘Music URL’ box
5. Click ‘Get Widget’
6. Copy the embed code and post it into your blog post as HTML

During your experience with blogging over the last few days you may have noticed the terms ‘Categories’ and ‘Tags’ when working with your posts.  These two features allow you to provide additional classification information about your posts and they content that they contain.  Here’s a brief overview of how to use these features.

Categories

Categories allow you to group your posts based on their content. For example, on our blog we have categories for ‘Announcements’, ‘Blogging’ and ‘Web 2.0′.  When I create a new post I can select the most relevant category from the listing on the right side of the screen.  A post can be a member of multiple categories, and you can create new categories from this listing as well.

There is a ‘Categories’ widget that can be added to your blog via the Appearance -> Widgets menu.  This widget will provide a listing of categories on the side of your blog.  Clicking on a category name will display only posts associated with that particular category.

Tags

Tags work almost the same as categories, but instead of setting up all tags ahead of time you can simply create them as you go along.  Think of them as a “looser” classification system.  For example, if I have a post that talks about Google Docs I would probably file it under the ‘Web 2.0′ category.  I would then use the tags feature to further define the post.  I may use tags such as ‘Google Docs’, ‘Web-based spreadsheet’, ‘data collection’, and ‘collaborative document creation’.

There is also a ‘Tag Cloud’ widget in addition to the Categories widget discussed above.  This widget will display a “cloud” of tags on the sidebar of your blog simliar to the tag cloud generated by wordle.

Click here for more information from wordpress.org on Categories & Tags.

Here’s how you can incorporate the “Google Analytics” feature into your blog. This feature will allow you to easily track who is visiting your blog, where they are coming from, what browsers they are using, etc. Here’s how to get started!

1. Visit: http://www.google.com/analytics/
2. Log in using your Google Identity.
3. Click “Add Website Profile”
4. Paste your blog address into the box labeled “Please provide the URL of the site you would like to track.”
5. Click Continue
6. A new page will appear with a bunch of HTML code in a white text box. Select this code and copy it using EDIT->Copy.
7. Click Finish
8. Open a new window and sign into your blog
9. Click Appearance -> Widgets
10. We need to add in a place to hold this code on your blog. You can do this by adding a text widget to your sidebar. Paste the tracking code information into the widget body – feel free to leave the title of this element blank.
11. Switch back to the browser window that has Google Analytics running and click “Check Status” to verify that you’ve set up your blog correctly. Click Finish when you’re done.

Congratulations! You’ve successfully set up tracking on your blog! Google Analytics tracks information on a daily basis, so you won’t begin to see tracking information until tomorrow.

Here’s a brief blogging “cheat sheet” that goes over the basics of maintaining your blog.

1. Logging into your blog
   1. Visit your blog with a web browser.  I recommend that you use Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.  Internet Explorer can be a little unstable when working with wordpress.
   2. This is the public view of your blog.  To get to the dashboard, click on the “Log In” link.  If you are missing the log-in link you can type in the following to get to your dashboard:http://yourblogname.globalblogs.org/wp-admin/Just place “/wp-admin/” after the end of your blog’s name to get to the dashboard.  Log in using your username & password.
   3. If you forget your blog username & password please contact me and I can reset it for you.
2. Working with Posts
   1. Posts are like journal entries.  They are time-based and will appear in reverse chronological order on your blog.  You can add, delete and modify posts by using the Posts menu.
   2. Posts can contain all sorts of attachments, including images and documents.  To incorporate these kinds of documents you can use the “Add media” buttons at the top of the post page.  These four buttons (add image, add video, add audio and add media) let you upload files from your computer and incorporate them into your posts.
   3. After you upload a document you will be given the option to ‘save all changes’ or ‘insert into post’.  Inserting the item into your post will cause wordpress to link a copy of the document into the body of the current post.  Clicking save will save the file that you just uploaded into your “Gallery” and will not be visibile via your post.  If you accidentally click the ‘Save’ button you can always click on the ‘Add Media’ button and then on the ‘Gallery’ title.  Click ‘show’ next to the item you wish to insert, and then click on ‘Insert into post’ to insert the item into the currently active post.
   4. Note that if you are linking in a file-based resource (i.e. PDF or Word document) you should click the ‘File URL’ before you click the ‘Insert Post’ button.
3. Creating Hyperlinks
   1. You can link to other sites on the Internet or other areas of your blog by inserting a hyperlink.   To do this, open up a post and highlight the text that you want to turn into a link.
   2. Next, click the ‘add link ‘button (looks like a small chain link) – type or copy/paste the URL of the page you wish to link to in the box that appears.
4. Working with Pages
   1. WordPress Pages are like traditional webpages.  Unlike posts, they are not time based and they will always appear in a fixed location on your blog.  The location is dependent on the theme that you selected.  Pages are best used for “static” content that will not change very often.
   2. Pages can be added, deleted and modified by visiting the Pages menu.
   3. Pages can contain images and documents just like a post.
5. Widgets
   1. Widgets are used to control the layout of the sidebars of your page.
   2. The sidebars are static and will not change no matter which page you visit in your site.  They provide a constant frame of reference.
   3. The widget panel can be accessed by visiting the Appearance menu and clicking on the ‘Widget’ menu.
   4. There are many widgets to choose from and they are listed along the left hand side of the widget menu.
   5. Depending on the theme that you chose you may have more than one sidebar in which you can place widgets.
   6. You can select the sidebar you wish to work with by using the drop down menu on the right side o the screen.
   7. You can add a widget to the sidebar by dragging the desired widget into the corresponding sidebar.
   8. You can reorder widgets by dragging and dropping them.