By Matt | September 29, 2008 at 11:32 AM EDT | No Comments
Blogs. Who would've thought 10 years ago that the Internet would be revolutionized by YOU, through the world of blogs ("web logs") and the evolution of Web 2.0? A blog lets you reach out to your website visitors, whether they be your customers, friends or family. It adds personalization, and extends your existence to the online world. EmbeddedBlogs allow you to easily place a blog within your own, personalized website, accessed via your own personalized web address or domain name. Most blogs today are in and of themselves a website, but many people and businesses need a blog as just one part of their foothold on the Internet.
EmbeddedBlogs make it easy to "drop" in a blog as part of your new or existing website. With Network Solutions' ImageCafé website editor, EmbeddedBlogs are literally dragged and dropped onto a web page of your choosing. Nothing could be simpler, yet more powerful. (Setup instructions with ImageCafé are provided here.) And yes, this blog is itself an EmbeddedBlog within an ImageCafé generated website.
This EmbeddedBlogs Blog attempts to document the key features of your EmbeddedBlog. Think of this as your user guide, or your avenue to reach out to the EmbeddedBlog developers. The topics in this blog include:
Behind the scenes, EmbeddedBlogs are powered by the popular Wordpress-mu platform, the same software powering millions of blogs hosted at wordpress.com and many other websites.
As always, your feedback and questions are welcome. Thanks for using EmbeddedBlogs by Network Solutions.
By Matt | September 29, 2008 at 11:18 AM EDT | 7 comments
The following topics are Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about EmbeddedBlogs. If you have a question but don't see it answered here, feel free to submit a comment.
Q: How is an EmbeddedBlog different from signing up for a blog from popular sites like wordpress.com, blogger.com, or livejournal.com?
A: An EmbeddedBlog is a blog that can exist as just one part of your entire website. It is powered by the same software used by wordpress.com. Within the context of a website creator like Network Solutions' ImageCafé, you can literally drag and drop an EmbeddedBlog onto any page of your website. In seconds, your blog is ready for use, all within the framework of your personalized website.
Q: Are there any examples of live EmbeddedBlogs for me to better understand what I can do with my blog?
A: Absolutely! What you're reading right now is an example of an EmbeddedBlog within a website created using ImageCafé.
Q: How do I change my password?
A: As the owner of an EmbeddedBlog, you can change your password anytime using Network Solutions' ImageCafé website editing tool. Here's how:
Select the page on which you've placed your EmbeddedBlog.
Click the "Edit Item" button for your blog.
The pop-up window allows you to set your password and display name. This is the same configuration you did when you first dropped your EmbeddedBlog onto your webpage.
Q: What are the "Spam Verification" images for?
A: In a word, security. The "Spam Verification" images appear for both new comment submissions as well as for admin logins. We have intentionally enabled this for all EmbeddedBlogs in an effort to reduce the possibility of "comment spam" (where automated scripts post irrelevant and sometimes inappropriate spam-type comments to blogs) as well as brute force login attempts (again through automated means of guessing usernames and passwords).
The world of the Internet is unfortunately full of malicious individuals, so this is our way of trying to ensure that you, as an owner of an EmbeddedBlog, are protected as best as we can. While Spam Verification images are a deterrent, they will not stop the truly resourceful with malicious intent.
Q: What's on the roadmap of EmbeddedBlog features?
A: We're aggressively working to continue to enhance and improve EmbeddedBlogs. Some of these features include:
Blog postings archives (right now, all of your blog postings appear within the page of "Latest" blog entries).
Comment editing (right now, you are not allowed to edit comments).
RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
Q: As you release updates, will my EmbeddedBlog be updated automatically?
A: Yes! All EmbeddedBlogs automatically update as releases are made available through a central software repository maintained by Network Solutions. Update checks are performed anytime you login to your EmbeddedBlog.
Identify the URL of the image you wish to insert into your blog. Here are some common ways to do this, if you are permitted to do so (disclaimer: some images, such as those from SmugMug, are copyrighted and you may not be legally allowed to link to them):
In Microsoft IE7, right-click on the image you desire, and select "Properties."
With your mouse, highlight the "Address (URL)" value and copy it to your clipboard (either right-click and "Copy" the highlighted text, or CTRL-C on Windows).
In Firefox, right-click on the image you desire, and select "Copy Image Location." The URL of the image should now be in your clipboard.
In Safari, right-click on the image you desire, and select "Copy Image Address." The URL of the image should now be in your clipboard.
In your rich blog editor, click on the "Insert/edit image" button:
In the pop-up that appears, paste the image URL into the "Image URL" field. Although that's all you really need, you can feel free to add an "Image Description" and tweak other settings. (The value you enter in the "Image Description" becomes the value of the image's "alt" tag, which is usually a textual description of the image in case the image cannot be rendered by the web browser.)
Click the "Insert" button. The inserted image should appear within the rich blog editor.
Click through to "Preview" and "Publish Now!" -- you're done!
Insert an image that you've uploaded with your ImageCafé website (that is, photos that you've placed in your ImageCafé "Photos and Files" document library).
Add your images to your ImageCafé "Photos and Files" document library:
Click on "Photos and Files."
Upload the images you want to include in your blog. See the ImageCafé user guide for step by step instructions.
If you don't want these images to appear anywhere else on your website, add a hidden page (a page that you don't link to from anywhere). For example, create a page called "myimages" and place it under "Pages Not in Menu":
Insert the images onto the page you created in step 2. See the ImageCafé User Guide for step by step instructions.
Publish your website. This will cause all of your images to be published as well. See the ImageCafé User Guide for details.
View the published hidden page. For example, if you created the page as "myimages", you should be able see this via the URL http://www.mywebsite.com/myimages.html (fill in your own domain name instead of mywebsite.com, of course).
Treat the images on this "hidden" page in a similar manner to external images, and copy and use the URL of these images as described in the first section of this FAQ answer.
Q: How do I insert a movie in my blog post?
A: The easiest way to insert a movie is to use a popular online video site such as YouTube or Vimeo. Once you've selected a movie that you wish to include, follow the steps below to insert it with your blog:
For YouTube Videos
Click on the "Insert / edit embedded media" button in your rich blog editor:
Copy the URL of the movie from the YouTube site, for example:
Paste the URL into the "File/URL" field of the pop-up that appeared when you clicked in step 1.
Verify that the preview video is what you're expecting.
Click the "Insert" button.
A placeholder for the video will appear within the rich blog editor, similar to the following:
Click through to "Preview" your blog post to see the actual video within your blog post.
Continue to "Publish Now!" -- you're done!
For Vimeo Videos
Identify vimeo URL, such as http://www.vimeo.com/1385862. (That number at the end of the URL is the unique identifier for your video).
In your blog editor, click on the "Insert/edit embedded media" button:
In the "File/URL" field, enter the following: http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1385862
where the number at the end of the URL is the same number from the vimeo URL you selected in step 1.
Verify that the preview video is what you're expecting.
Click the "Insert" button.
A placeholder for the video will appear within the rich blog editor, similar to the following:
Click through to "Preview" your blog post to see the actual video within your blog post.
By Matt | September 29, 2008 at 11:15 AM EDT | No Comments
Writing a new blog post or entry is easy using your EmbeddedBlog.
First, login to your blog by clicking on the "Admin Login" link that appears on your website. A login is required for posting new blog entries since you wouldn't want just anyone writing to your blog. At this time, the login username and password are the credentials that you configured when you first added your EmbeddedBlog to a page on your website.
After successfully logging in, the "Admin Login" link will be replaced with a link to "Write" and a link to "Logout".
Click on the "Write" link, and the following rich text editor will appear:
Use this editor (courtesy of TinyMCE) similar to how you'd use a word processor. This editor also allows you to insert pictures or even movies from popular sites like YouTube. Here are descriptions of each of the formatting buttons (these are typical controls available with many popular word processing software today):
Here are descriptions of some of the more advanced blog formatting buttons, including options that take advantage of key features of the World Wide Web, such as hyperlinks (text links between web pages), as well as inserting pictures and video:
When you're satisfied with your blog entry, click the "Preview" button to see how your new post will look when you publish. If you'd like to make additional changes, simply use your web browser's "Back" button to return to the editor. Or, click the "Publish Now!" button and your new blog entry will go live immediately.
By Matt | September 29, 2008 at 11:14 AM EDT | No Comments
As the owner of your EmbeddedBlog, you can freely edit and even delete blog postings from the past.
In order to do this, you must first login to your blog. See the discussion on logging in as described in the topic for Writing to Your Blog.
Upon a successful login, each of your blog posts will appear with special links that allow you to edit or delete your post. For example:
To modify your post, click on the "edit" link, which will bring up a rich text editor allowing you to modify your original content on the fly. From there, you'll be allowed to "Preview" and "Publish Now!", easily updating your blog to the world. (Please see the Writing to Your Blog topic for details on how to use the rich text editor.)
To delete your post, click on the "delete" link. You'll be prompted to confirm, and if you choose to continue, that blog post will be deleted.
Note that when you edit an existing blog posting, the date and time of the blog post do not change from the original publication date.
By Matt | September 29, 2008 at 11:12 AM EDT | 2 comments
With an embedded blog, your readers can freely offer commentary to your blog postings. All comments are unpublished, however, until you (the owner of your embedded blog) have a chance to review and approve them.
To do this, you must first login to your blog on your website. Please see the discussion about logging in within the Writing to Your Blog topic.
Once you've logged in, the comment counts for each blog post will also show, in parentheses, how many new comments are pending your approval. All comments are then annotated with links that allow you to either approve or delete. For example:
Clicking on the "approve" link will immediately publish the comment for public viewing.
Clicking on the "delete" link will allow you to delete the selected comment; this can be done for both already approved as well as unapproved comments. You will be prompted to confirm the delete action before the deletion actually occurs.
At this time, the content of comments cannot be edited. (This is in the pipeline for a future release.)
