The Macintosh iLife 06
| The term blog sounds like something that would make you reach for the stain remover, but it's actually a corrupt contraction of the words Web log. My Webster's defines blog thusly: "A personal Web site that provides updated headlines and news articles of other sites that are of interest to the user; also may include journal entries, commentaries and recommendations compiled by the user." I'll build on that definition to add that a blog's contents, called postings or entries, are generally presented in reverse chronological order: the most recent entry appears first. I'll also add that blogs almost always use RSS to let readers subscribe and have new postings delivered to their RSS newsreaders. And I'll amend the definition to remove the word personal. It's true that blogs are often personal journals. But businesses of all kinds have embraced blogging, too, relying on blogs to conduct conversations with their customers and engage in a dialog that's often more honest than the public relations people would like (see Publish & Prosper: Blogging for Your Business, by DL Byron and Steve Broback, New Riders, 2006). iWeb makes it easy to create a basic blog. Apple's .Mac service even handles the technicalities behind creating RSS feeds. The process of publishing podcasts is nearly identical to that of publishing blogs; simply choose the Podcast page style instead of Blog. For details on podcast production, see the previous chapter. Creating a New Blog
The Entries page appears. Notes and Tips Today's the day. It's common for each entry in a blog to be stamped with the day of its posting. When you create a new blog entry, iWeb gives it the current date. Room for everyone. You can have as many blogs and podcasts within a Web site as you like. Have several family members (or colleagues) with something to say? Each one can have his or her own blog. The Elements of a Blog In the course of managing a blog, iWeb creates and manages three types of pages. Blog Page The blog page is the main lobby for your blog. Visitors see excerpts of up to 50 of your most recent entries, and each excerpt has a link that lets them read the full entry. (You can customize the number and size of excerpts as described below.) In the Site Organizer pane, the main blog page has the name Blog, although you can rename it as you can any iWeb page. Entry Pages An entry page contains one blog posting: your rant of the day (or the hour). Each entry page also contains links, labeled Previous and Next, that allow your site's visitors to step through each of your blog entries. You can delete these links if you'd prefer that your visitors use your blog and archive pages to navigate. Archive Page The archive page is the dusty newspaper morgue where old back issues live; that is, it's where visitors can access all of your blog posts, not just recent ones. Customizing the Main Page You can use the Blog & Podcast Inspector to specify how many excerpts appear on your blog's main page as well as the length of each excerpt. In the Site Organizer pane, select the blog's main page, then display the Inspector and click its Tip Want to reduce the amount of clicking your visitors must do to read your latest dispatch? Show only one excerpt, and drag the Excerpt Length slider all the way to the right. Your latest entry will appear by itself, in its entirety, on the blog's main page. The RSS Angle Normally, iWeb adds a Subscribe button to your blog's main page. Visitors to your site can use this button to subscribe to the RSS feed that Apple's .Mac service creates for your blog. If you don't want to offer an RSS subscription option, delete the Subscribe button. Excerpts and RSS. The excerpts that iWeb creates for each entry are also what subscribers see when they update your subscription. If you want to deliver the entire blog post to your subscribersa nicety that many newsreader users appreciatedrag the Excerpt Length slider all the way to the right. |