Customer Reviews

Publishing a Blog with Blogger: Visual QuickProject Guide (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A blog or weblog is a great way to get started on the web and Blogger.com from Google is one of the most popular software for creating weblogs. In her book, Elizabeth Castro assumes that this may be your first web project as she walks you through the basics for creating a blog at Blogger.com.

First, she gives you an overview of Blogger.com, what the software does, and why she chose it as the subject for her book. After she introduces you to the Blogger Dashboard (the control panel where all the work is done), Castro shows you how to open a Blogger account, give your weblog a name and choose a template. The template does all the work for you when creating your weblog pages. All you need is the content that you want to publish and the template places everything in the correct spot on the webpage. Castro does a great job explaining all of this with step-by-step instructions and lots of illustrations.

Once you have posted your first weblog entry, Castro moves on to more advanced Blogger features such as working with the template tags to customize the look of your blog, how to control the members and comments features, how to post an entry by email and how to use Audioblogger to post an entry via the telephone.

Now that you have your weblog ready for the public, Castro discusses hosting your blog through Blogger's BlogSpot hosting or on your own server. Finally, she shows the many ways to publicize your blog including email and site feeds.

Elizabeth Castro has written many other Visual QuickStart Guide books for Peachpit Press.

I have been writing on my blog using Blogger since 2002, so I am very familiar with almost all the options it provides you with to get your word out there in the blogosphere. Yet, I was able to pick up numerous new things when I read this book by Elizabeth Castro. It goes from the very basics that you'd need in order to get off the ground, all the way to incorporating audio into your blog, blogging via e-mail/telephone, customizing your blog, hosting it yourself and much, much more. It's incredible the amount of useful information that the author was able to pack in a little over 100 pages.

As an experienced Blogger user I highly recommend this title (and of course, I recommend Blogger as a blogging platform).

I bought several books on blogging because I'm scheduled to teach a class about blogging at our library in late October. This little guide is the perfect teaching tool. Although it only covers one blog host, blogger.com, most of the information can be used with any host.

As others have attested, this is an excellent beginning guide. It is clear and easy to understand, in large part due to the screen shots and non-technical language. It is definitely an entry-level book.

What was lacking for me was that Blogger has just moved to a new version so the interface for editing much of the code in templates and other helps has changed. This will be a challenge for a relative beginner such as myself.

For just getting the basics, this is a great book, but keep in mind that there are changes to Blogger since it was printed.

*****
This book is very visual, lots of fun, and easy to read and understand---in short, perfect for the beginning blogger. It is the exact opposite of a reference manual, and thus is very hands on. Note that this book is only for people who want to use Blogger, which is free, to publish their blog. If you don't know what you want to publish your blog with, you like the "free" part, and you're not a business, you probably will be very, very happy with Blogger. So this would definitely be the book for you.

It is only 127 pages, so it's not overwhelming to read. You can easily go through it over a weekend and get your blog up and running. If you have HTML or XHTML experience, you'll find lots of good things, too, so slightly more experienced bloggers may still pick up a few tips, like how to change their header on a template or how to syndicate their blog.

If you are a geek, you won't need this book. You'll just log onto Blogger and think it's "intuitive" and be able to do everything. However, if you're like me and get stuck a lot, even with so-called "intuitive" software, you'll love this book.

Even though this book was published in 2005, and yes, Blogger is in a new version, I haven't found any problems applying what is in the book. None at all. The new version of Blogger just does more things for you; everything in the book still needs to be done one way or another. So it's doesn't make the book dated as far as it's utility goes. If you're really a beginner (which is who this book is for) you might not even notice.

There are pictures throughout of what the screens look like, so instead of TELLING you what to do and letting you figure it out, the book SHOWS you what to do and you just follow along. It keeps things as simple as possible.

Highly recommended for beginning bloggers.
*****

This book is like an instruction manual that comes with a new camera, but much better. Large color photographs of Blogger.com's pages, along with clear instructions, helped me navigate the high seas of blogging.

Castro shows you every aspect of your blog - launching, posting, digital imagery, editing, and advertising. I examined each feature, opened and closed each until they became as familiar to me as my stove and car. Best of all I overcame the fear that I'd break something accidentally, let's say, erased a link or two that my tech trainer had created.

Castro wrote the book for both Mac and PC users and carefully deals with compatibility issues by warning that some of the book's illustrations might not match what you see on your screen. She then guides you along alternative routes.

Taking a few hours to study Castro's crash-course manual saved me days of trial and error. I recommend it to all bloggers with Blogger.com.

Castro gives us a very visual guide to using Blogger. The pages are mostly colourful diagrams. Screen shots of example blogs being made with Blogger, with markups annotating how these were produced. Enough detail is presented to let you make up your blog site with the usual features common to many blogs. Like having links to earlier postings. Or letting a blogger add her photo to her profile, and describing information about her like what region she hails from.

The book should be a quick read.

Back in the day, this would have been a most excellent book. It still is in some respects. But, saddly, it suffers from the fact that Blogger has moved on, and like most technology books in this rapidly changing world, it has not.

I truly respect Ms. Castro's talents as a writer and teacher. Her books on HTML, XHTML, and CSS (for example HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)) have saved me much time and grief over the years. However, much of the still useful information in this book could just as well be found in the Blogger Help pages.

Still, if you need a little hand holding to get started I highly recommend "Publishing a Blog with Blogger."

I came across Publishing a Blog with Blogger on the new book display at my public library. Since I just started a blog using Blogger, I thought I'd take the book home and see what little tricks I might pick up.

Blogger is a straight-forward, user friendly tool and it takes just minutes to get a blog "live." I have created and/or maintained websites using HTML and click-n-build software, so I'm perhaps a bit more comfortable than the average computer user when it comes to clicking around such software. I imagine that many adventurous computer users, especially those who have their own social media profile(s), would be able to figure out the ins-and-outs of Blogger on their own after a week or two experimenting with the features on their own.

But for those who are short on time, have limited internet and/or computer experience or for those who prefer to see they lay of the land before striking out on their own, Publishing a Blog with Blogger is a helpful companion to have perched on your computer desk as you explore Blogger. Its a colorful book with explanatory page shots that give simple step-by-step instructions on how to create, edit, and delete content.

Although I'm comfortable using the basic features of Blogger, Publishing a Blog with Blogger also introduced me to features I may not have sought out such as adding video and audio content. The neatest thing I learned about from this book is Google Analytics. This free tool does more than just tell you how many visitors your blog has had, it tells you where they're coming from, how long they stay, what search words they used, and how deeply they explored your blog. My blog is a hobby for me, but for someone using their blog for business purposes, Google Analytics could help target one's marketing & outreach efforts.

Overall: an informative, helpful, easy to use book.

Elizabeth Castro is one of the best tech authors out there. Her book on HTML (HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition (Visual Quickstart Guide)) is an absolute classic and belongs in every serious techie's library.

However, this book on using Google Blooger dates from 2005 and is seriously outdated. The newcomer will be much better served by Google Blogger For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))which has just been released.

Blogger's interface has changed considerably since the time Castro's book was published and a newcomer might not be able to easily understand the differences. "Google Blogger for Dummies" also offers somewhat more depth.

"Publishing a Blog with Blogger" was good for its time, but its time is past.

Jerry