Google Stuff Part II - How to blog

In my previous post "What's the big deal with Google", I wanted to find a way to showcase all the wonderful utilities that Google has been pumping out. I figured walking through the process to create a blog would be fun. Plus I still get a log of questions lately from folks that are still not sure what this blog stuff is all about. They typically what to know what is a blog, do I need one, and how do I set one up?

You may have noticed I provided a link above to Wikipedia to help explain what a blog is. Click on it and you're taken to a free online encyclopedia that is updated everday by everyday folks on the internet. It's quickly becoming the standard way to refence terms and definitions to help your readers with new concepts. So keep Wiki in mind when you need your blog to explain things in geek. I will talk about additional Web 2.0 application that can complement your blog and surfing experience. But that's all together another post for another day.

All: another post for another day!

Right!! Glad to see you're all paying attention. Lets move on, shall we? I've talked about Google goodness in the past, but it's just amazing how they have come to dominate the portal market and provide us with useful applications such as Gmail, Maps, Video, Picasa, Blogger, Talk, Firefox Web Blogger Extension, and RSS Reader.

Whew! That's a lot of goodness...and it doesn't even scratch the surface. There is so much more, but I wanted to concentrate on what would be relevant for blogging. Google has recently put a installation pack together to help make it easier. But I recommend you install the pack after you have reviewed what each application provides and if it decide you could benefit from it. So lets conentrate on the tools you need for blogging first.

Basic Steps

1. Blogger: Go to www.blogger.com and create a free account. If you don't have your own domain, no problem, Blogger will host your site. If you have your own domain, then work with your host provider to give you an FTP account that points to your web root. You will need to provide this info to Blogger so that it can publish your blog. Make sure you update you profile with as much information as you feel comfortable with. I always recommend that women should be careful and not volunteer your gender unless you really want to be harassed. If you like harassment, then don't listen to me.
   
2. Gmail: Once you setup Blogger, you are now entitled to setup a free Google Email account. You don't need Blogger to get Gmail, but why bother your friend to send you a Gmail invite when you can do it yourself. But remember, gmail users will always be happy to send you an invite. Make sure you go back to your Blogger account profile and update your email to use your Gmail account.
3. Picasa: Once you have your blog in place and able to publish, you would more then likely want to add some photos. Picasa not only offers wonderful blogger integration and support, but it's a wonderful way to organize all those lost photos and images scattered across your mutliple hard drives.
   
4. Firefox Web Blogger Extension: Hopefully you took my advice in the first post and installed Firefox. You will not be disappointed. Once you have it installed, you can start to learn about the Firefox Extentions. This really starts to show why Firefox is soooo cool. Google provides a web blogger extension that allows your to easily comment about other web sites and blogs back to your blog. Plus it allows you to find out what other bloggers are posting about other blogs, including your own.
5. Video: Google now provides a central place for folks to upload videos that otherwise are zinging across email, P2P file sharing, or hundreds of other video sites. If you need to find a video and blog about it, this will be your one stop shopping. [EDIT] Google Video has now made posting video links even easier. Once you find the video, they can provide you the code to add to your blog...like this.
   This by the way is a video of my typical workout session.
   
6. RSS Reader: As you start finding other blogs of interest, you will quickly learn what a pain it is to keep up to date with all of them. You can quickly miss a few days, and before you know it, your are serveral post behind on your favorite blog. RSS Readers allow you to store all your favorite blogs and web sites in one common reader. Allowing you to go to one place to find which blogs have posted new material. Most blogs today will support RSS Readers by providing a RSS Syndication link. All you need to do is copy and paste that link into RSS Reader, provide a description and you're set. Blogger by default will publish a RSS feed for you automatically with a feed file called Atom.xml.
   

Hopefully those new to blogging will find this useful. Those more experienced find that Blogger is a great start but does have its limitations. We can talk about more advance blogging applications down the road.