Setting up a blog for your SouthWight website
This is a basic guide to setting up a basic blog on your SouthWight website using Blogger. I'm not particularly recommending Blogger, but its easy enough and thats a good thing for basic guide, right?
Basic Settings Blogger
If necessary, create an account on Blogger. Then set up a new blog. All the settings below should be applied to this new blog, consequently it will post the results into your SouthWight website using your SouthWight FTP service (yes, all included in your account!).
Remember when you filled in your subscription form? On the form I asked you to specify your preferred account name. In the settings below, use your account name where I have "account_name", if in doubt it is the one I confirmed in your welcome message (along with your password).
On setting up a new blog, work through all the settings, for hosting, make sure you don't use Blogspace to host (assuming you want to use SouthWight).
Basic
Set the Title to whatever you want, same with the description and other basic settings. This bit is about you and your blog, not technical stuff.
Publishing
These are technical settings for the SouthWight server, enabling Blogger to send your website posts to SouthWight, so we can show 'em. Ensure you enter the information correctly, substituting account_name and password with, you guessed it your account name and your password!
Make sure you use the default FTP setting (not SFTP) before you fill in the form.
FTP Server: ftp.southwight.com
Blog URL: http://southwight.com/~account_name -- where account_name is the account name I sent you in your welcome message and the one you put on your subs form!
FTP Path:
Blog filename: index.html
FTP Username: account_name
FTP Password: your_password
Ping Weblogs.com: -- advanced stuff, read, you decide!
Formatting
This section lets you specify how your posts appear, how to display date, time, your name and so on. Give this a go on your own - its all up to you anyway.
Comments
These setting determine whether you allow other people to post to your blog, i.e. add comments. And if you do allow this, what are the restrictions if any. Nice feature, especially for your readers.
Archving
This is highly recommended. Archiving means that over time your blog will be automagically sorted into archives in date order, meaning you keep your home page small and neat, with all past posts just a click away.
Archiving frequency: monthly (say)
Enable post pages: YES
Archive Path: archive/
Archive URL: leave blank
Archive Filename: archive.html
Site Feed
An advanced setting for allowing your site to be syndicated.
Publish site Feed: YES
Descriptions: Full
Site feed server path:
Site Feed filename: atom.xml
Site Feed URL: atom.xml
Email
Advanced setting for allowing email posting.
Members
Advanced setting for allowing more than one person to blog to this site (family, company members, etc., for example). A most excellent use of this idea is Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things.
Basic Settings Blogger
If necessary, create an account on Blogger. Then set up a new blog. All the settings below should be applied to this new blog, consequently it will post the results into your SouthWight website using your SouthWight FTP service (yes, all included in your account!).
Remember when you filled in your subscription form? On the form I asked you to specify your preferred account name. In the settings below, use your account name where I have "account_name", if in doubt it is the one I confirmed in your welcome message (along with your password).
On setting up a new blog, work through all the settings, for hosting, make sure you don't use Blogspace to host (assuming you want to use SouthWight).
Basic
Set the Title to whatever you want, same with the description and other basic settings. This bit is about you and your blog, not technical stuff.
Publishing
These are technical settings for the SouthWight server, enabling Blogger to send your website posts to SouthWight, so we can show 'em. Ensure you enter the information correctly, substituting account_name and password with, you guessed it your account name and your password!
Make sure you use the default FTP setting (not SFTP) before you fill in the form.
FTP Server: ftp.southwight.com
Blog URL: http://southwight.com/~account_name -- where account_name is the account name I sent you in your welcome message and the one you put on your subs form!
FTP Path:
Blog filename: index.html
FTP Username: account_name
FTP Password: your_password
Ping Weblogs.com: -- advanced stuff, read, you decide!
Formatting
This section lets you specify how your posts appear, how to display date, time, your name and so on. Give this a go on your own - its all up to you anyway.
Comments
These setting determine whether you allow other people to post to your blog, i.e. add comments. And if you do allow this, what are the restrictions if any. Nice feature, especially for your readers.
Archving
This is highly recommended. Archiving means that over time your blog will be automagically sorted into archives in date order, meaning you keep your home page small and neat, with all past posts just a click away.
Archiving frequency: monthly (say)
Enable post pages: YES
Archive Path: archive/
Archive URL: leave blank
Archive Filename: archive.html
Site Feed
An advanced setting for allowing your site to be syndicated.
Publish site Feed: YES
Descriptions: Full
Site feed server path:
Site Feed filename: atom.xml
Site Feed URL: atom.xml
Advanced setting for allowing email posting.
Members
Advanced setting for allowing more than one person to blog to this site (family, company members, etc., for example). A most excellent use of this idea is Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things.
posted by Mark Middleton @ 11:51
