Categories.........
Well, I'm very excited about this week's post.
I finally figured out how to configure my archives into categories!
It's something I've been wanting to do for quite some time now, but just didn't know how. The few searches I conducted gave me instructions that looked like:
//????>blahblahblah[\\!!!!^^this is way too hard for you====give up now!!!!!]//
So I did.
But then I read this article on Skelliewag and thought, "Darn it, she's right!"
I found her instructions to be a bit convoluted and knew there had to be an easier way.
I'd seen a few Blogger blogs that had categories, most notably, More Ways to Waste Time. Thinking I'd be clever, I sent Leah an e-mail asking her how she did it. Unfortunately, my computer chose that moment to throw a hissy fit and send out total gibberish. Sorry if I scared you, Leah!
In the meantime, I kept looking and found, right there in the Blogger Help Centre, perfectly easy instructions for how to set up a categories list. Amazing what happens when you look!
Going back into all your old posts and adding the relevant labels would be a tedious process. Fortunately, there are instructions for doing it in batches.
Crazy helpful! Any of you working with Blogger, that little helpdesk feature is a goldmine of information. You just have to know what questions to ask - and I think that comes from reading other peoples' blogs and wondering "How did they...?" - and also, how to ask the questions. It's a bit like looking things up in the yellow pages. If "doctors" doesn't work, try "physicians" or "health care".
From looking at Typepad and Wordpress blogs, I get the sense that setting up a categories list is really straightforward. If it's not, and if you've learned a few tricks, please share them with us!
And now to answer readers' questions...
The first one was about using Flickr photos on your blog. I've read all the rules and regulations and it looks like, if they're in the public portion of the site, and you give due credit with a link, it's OK.
Sending an email to tell someone that you're using their pictures and where is a nice touch, but not, as I read it, strictly necessary.
The second question was whether or not there is an app like Windows Live Writer for Mac users.
I looked and I looked and I looked. I could not find a single thing that was free, or nearly as exciting as Windows Live. Sorry!
If anyone knows of anything, please leave a comment and let us know!
And I think I've come to the end of cool and exciting things that I can share in this series.
Does anyone have any questions? Does someone have something they'd like to share next week that we haven't covered yet? Let me know and we'll keep this series rolling!
A final note on the Blogger instructions - when you've added a label to a whole batch of posts, click on the "None" option at the top of the page afterwards. Otherwise you'll keep adding labels to that batch of posts.
3 comments:
Sorry I didn't get the email you intended to send -- I would've been happy to help!
Leah
It's not too late to switch to typepad. I repeat, it's not too late. It was the best move for me. No WAY I was ever going to be able to figure out all the html mumbo jumbo. Now I'm playing around with wordpress and it seems to open even greater possibilities. I'll let you know in a few weeks when I know more. Thank you for all the tips you wrote about lately.
It's too soon to switch! I need to suffer more!
Looking forward to hearing what you find with wordpress.
And thanks Leah, I know you would have helped!
Post a Comment