So You Want To Set Up A Blog... or even a Website (A first easy step to creating your web presence)...

Let's Face It --

You Need a Web Presence...

Here's How to Create One Fast, Easily and for Free!

This is a really brief overview, with more details to follow in future posts... 

This post brought to you by #IMaHero!

1. First -- if you don't have a Google account... create one! Maybe the easiest way to do this is to create a gmail account...
2. Second -- in Gmail, go over to your settings... and select blogger from the 9 dot "square" at the top right... like these images show (you'll have to click "more" at the first screen to get the second!  (MAN there are a LOT of google resources, eh?
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3. Continue...
3. Third -- at this point you'll be taken to a welcome screen where you'll be asked to set up your "profile name" (don't worry, you can change it later...
4. Fourth -- you'll be given a "warning" about European Laws and cookies... (you can remove these warnings by clicking on the "x"s at the top left... but you probably should be at least familiar with them ... you may want to open the link to read about your responsibilities -- or save it to read later...
1. and THEN... the invitation to  "create new blog"... 
2. Accept the invitation by clicking  the button...
1. Fifth -- set up your blog title, your blog address, select a template (there are more free templates for blogger blogs than those... so don't despair if you find the choices limited) -- 
2. Sixth -- select "Create Blog"... 
3. And now you'll be taken to your blog dashboard -- just click "new Post at the top to write your first  post! 

 

Challenges in creating this post...  

This is NOT the friendlist wysiwig editor... and the html it creates is pitiful...

I would have been a bit lost if I didn't already know html ... but as it was,  the html in the html mode is so cluttered and SO messy, I couldn't figure out how to clean up what I wanted to do...

Years ago I used the long ago no longer supported nvu, and then it's successor, much improved, KompoZer... which was subsequently replaced by a paid-for product, the name of which I don't remember...

I especially had issues with my lists.  Many apps, if you have a sublist, will bounce back to the outer list if you simply hit enter... not here. 

I could not figure out how to clean that up easily, because the html is so pitiful. (It does remind me of some of the messy html the aforementioned free tools used to create.  But at the very least, Kompozer, if you highlighted the item you wanted to edit the html of in the wysiwig editor, when you opened the html view, it would have the relevant html highlighted.

Options to consider to make creating these posts easier...

1. Create the post in Google Docs and copy and paste it to the blogger post...  (see, now the list creation is NOT working correctly... I can't seem to get "2" by simply entering a carriage return... 
   
   
   1. if I have a WordPress installation, I could try creating, then copying and pasting from there as well ... 
   2. in fact, there's any number of wysiwig editors I could try creating my content in, and copying it over to the blogger editor and see if it works.
2. Now it gives me a "2"... go figure -- AND it created it in the outer list after creating a sublist... something I could not get to work in the first place
3. Try writing everything in text first, adding it, and then adding in the formatting and styles...

Hope that helps... and this is Web Handy Woman wishing you a happy and productive day... and hats off to Cindy Donovan and #IMaHero -- who this blog, and this blog post, were inspired by, in her "IMaHero challenge" she's running in her Wildfire Concepts Facebook group!