 | Creating your Blog |  |
What is a Blog?
A Blog, also known as a Weblog or a Journal, is your own place in the City where you can write just about anything you want, such as your thoughts, ideas and opinions. You can write for the entire world, just your friends, or just for yourself. The key factor with blogs is control: you can control and take charge of what goes on, what your blog looks like, what's in your blog, and who can read it.
When you post your thoughts, ideas, or anything else to your Blog, that is called an Entry. If you choose to allow people to post replies about what you have written, that is called Comment.
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How do I create my Blog?
To create your Blog, navigate to the Arts & Leisure Plaza building, and click the Blogs link. On this page, you should see a list of other Citizens' blogs. You can look around them now or later, it's your choice. For now, you should see three links on the top left-hand side of the page, beneath the word 'Blogs'. Click any one of them. If you see an error message, click the link it contains. Regardless of which path you took, they all end up at the same place: a page to create your Blog.
First off, you should see that a few blanks have been filled in for you. The system uses your name as part of the blog title, and gives you a default blog description. These can be changed to whatever you want, and in fact it is recommended you do so because you can give people a better idea of what your blog is about and make it stand out from the others.
Next are two pop-up menus, which should both say 'Guests'. The first menu controls who is allowed to get into your blog and read what it contains, the second controls who is able to comment upon your blog entries. You can then set how many entries you would like to be shown on your main blog page. If you plan on adding lots of entries to your blog, say everyday, it may be best to keep this number low, around 3 or 4. If you don't plan on adding new entries very frequently, a larger number such as 10 will suffice. Take note that whatever you set this number to, all of the entries can be viewed at any time, even if they aren't on your Blog's main page.
The last option you can change is how your Blog looks. There are 12 templates to choose from, and as you select one, you can see a small image of what it looks like. Keep in mind that you can change which template you use for your blog, and you can even change how the templates look if you so choose.
When you're finished with these options, click the 'Create my Blog!' button.
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Can I have more than one Blog?
No, each user is limited to one blog. If you want another blog, you'll have to register another Mac GUI account.
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| Reading others' Blogs | |
How can I find others' Blogs?
There are 5 different ways to find Blogs on Mac GUI City, other than asking someone if he or she has a blog. Here are the ways:
1.) On the main Blogs page, you can see the most Recently Updated blogs, when the last entry was, and how many entries there are. This way, you don't have to hunt around to find if some has updated his/her blog. Take note that these entries also appear in the Trackers on the right side of the page, if you have turned them on.
2.) Also on the main Blogs page, you can see the blogs of your friends, if you have any. If you don't have any friends on your Friends List, now would be a good time to search out some!
3.) The third way to find blogs on the main Blogs page, is to view a list of blogs to which you have subscribed. This is similar to Topic Subscription in the Forums.
4.) The fourth way to find interesting Blogs is by viewing Citizens' profiles. If the Citizen has made at least one Blog entry, they will appear on his profile page and you can click them to find what they are about.
5.) The final way to find blogs is by using the search system. Navigate to the main blogs page and click the search link in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. On the next page, you can use a keyword search to find blog entries.
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Can I make a list of my favorite Blogs?
Yes. If there are several Blogs which you frequently read, you can compose them all onto one list. First, navigate to the Blog which you wish to add, then click the 'Subscribe' link near the top-right side. You should get a message saying that you are now subscribed to the blog. To view your Blog subscription list, goto the main blogs page and click the 'Subscriptions' link on the to right-hand side of the page.
If you wish to remove a blog from this list, follow the same instructions, only this time the link you will click will instead read 'Unsubscribe'.
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How can I find Entries from certain dates?
You can easily locate entries in a certain blog from the year, month, and even down to the exact day. To do so, the blog in question must be showing a calendar. This calendar will appear in the side-bar of the blog, near the top of the page. You can click an individual day to see entries which were written on it, or you can manipulate the pop-up menus to go back to any any date you wish, and see which, if any, entries were made then.
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How can I view the Blog owner's Friends?
If the owner of the Blog you are currently reading has any friends specified, there is a page which will allow you to easily see the latest entries from their blogs, basically allowing for an inter-connected "Blog Ring." To see, navigate to the blog, and click the 'Friends' link in the side-bar.
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Are there RSS Feeds?
Yes. Each blog has its own dedicated RSS feed stream. To access it, click the small RSS icon at the bottom of any blog. Or enter in the URL: http://macgui.com/rss/blogs.php?u=XX Where XX is the User ID of the Blog's owner.
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| Blog Posting | |
How do I post a new Entry?
To post a new entry to your Blog, you need to first go to your Blog. To do this, navigate to the Arts & Leisure Plaza building, and click the Blogs link.
Click the 'New Blog Entry' link on the top left-hand side of the page, beneath the word 'Blogs'. Or, you can click 'My Blog' and then click 'Post a new entry'.
Either way, you will be taken to a screen which, if you are familiar with posting messages in the Forums, Gallery, and/or Newsstand, should be recognizable.
The first thing you need to enter is the Subject. This defines what your blog entry is going to be about. You can then choose a Mood and an 'Currently doing...' action from the respective pop-up menus. Both of these are optional, though using them may help the read to know what frame of mind you were in when you wrote the entry. It's your choice.
After this is the main body of the blog entry. You can use the BBCode buttons to format your entry, and you can also include smilies. The body of your entry can be as long or as short as you want, but is should contain some sort of intelligible text if you wish to be taken seriously.
After you have composed your blog entry, you have a few more options available to you. First, you can set the date of the entry in the past of into the future. Future entries will not appear until then, while past entries will always appear now. You can then choose who can read the entry. Take note that a person must be able to access your blog before even having a chance at being able to read what you have written. For example, if your Blog's viewing access setting is set to Friends Only, and you set the Entry's access to Guests, only friends will be able to view the entry because only friends can access your blog.
The other two options allow you to mark an entry as memorable, meaning that it will be easier to find when viewing the list of all the Blogs entries. The second option will allow only you to make comments to the entry.
Adding Images to the Entry
After you have set these options to your choosing, you can upload images to your Blog entry. For example, if you are writing about your vacation, it might be helpful and interesting to include some photos you took there. To do so, scroll down to the 'Add Image(s) to Entry' section and click the 'Choose File' or 'Browse' button (some browsers say different things). Select the image you wish to upload, bearing in mind that it can be no larger than 500x500 pixels in dimensions and 128 KiloBytes in disk size. When ready, click the 'Upload Image' button.
After a few seconds, you will see a message at the top of the page indicating that image was successfully uploaded and that you should use BBCode to place it in your blog entry body. THIS IS IMPORTANT: your image will NOT appear in your blog entry unless you scroll down until you see the image's thumbnail and copy the BBCode. It will be to the right of the thumbnail and it will look something like this:
[img]http://macgui.com/upload/blogs/711/1200105005.jpg[/img]
Copy all of it into your blog entry where you want the image to appear. You can then upload more images in the same way if you wish, and place them in your entry.
Sending a Trackback
You are now down to the last step of posting a blog entry, which, like uploading an image, is also optional. A 'trackback' is an automated message sent to other blog systems and entries notifying that you have posted a new entry. The people who run these blogs can then link back to you, and more people will know about your blog, which is generally a good thing.
First, you have to compose a short summary of what your blog entry is about, in 255 characters or less. After this, you must entry in the URLs you wish to send the Trackback to. Each blog system outside of Mac GUI City has its own method of doing this, and it is beyond the scope of this guide to explain each of the different systems.
However, if you wish to send a trackback to another Mac GUI City Blog, the URL format is this:
http://macgui.com/blogs/?mode=trackback&e=255
You must enter the URL to the blog entry. If you are unsure what the URL is, navigate to the Blog, and click the 'Permalink' link on the entry. Then, you should see the bold text 'The Trackback URL for this entry is'. After that will be the URL. This is the correct Trackback URL for a Mac GUI City Blog entry.
When you are finally finished with all of this, you may click the 'Preview' button to see how your entry will look, or the 'Submit' button to post the entry to your Blog. If there were no errors, you can continue directly to the entry, or to the blog page.
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Can others post in my blog?
Yes. When a blog owner has others listed as contributors, he/she may now view, post, and edit entries in your Blog. To add contributors to your blog, first goto your Blog, click the contributors link, then add the Member names on the next page.
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