blog tools and how-tos

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Introduction

Setting up a blog of your own is, thankfully, a fairly simple matter. There are a variety of tools available to bloggers, as well as a variety of blog "accessories." Some of these tools and accessories require only the basic knowledge of using a web browser, while other tools—more robust ones—need some knowledge of configuring web scripts, uploading files, and HTML coding. This page describes some of the available tools you can use to start a blog for yourself or your class.

As with any use of technology, you might encounter problems in using these services or setting up your blog. Such problems are always frustrating, but I think they also provide interesting pedagogical moments if you're using a blog in your class. After all, it's when things fail that you best see how they work; when they work, they tend to be invisible. If you or your students have problems following the set-up instructions in these services, for example, then that's a great chance to discuss the assumptions hidden within those instructions. If your blog fails at a crucial moment, then that's a chance to think about the limits of technology.

However, the good news is that blogs are not "bleeding edge" technologies. All of the tools described below are very stable, with a large user base. If you do encounter problems, each provides a place to turn to for help.

Any blog needs a tool to create and manage the entries and generated pages. Some of the more popular blog tools and services are:

• Blogger: Blogger was one of the very first blogging services and remains, perhaps, the most popular. Its popularity results not simply from its longevity, but also from the fact that it offers a web-based interface for creating, writing, and managing your blog. Moreover, although you can have Blogger publish to your own website or server space, it also offers hosting for your blog at blogspot.com and, even more alluring, it does all of this for free. A number of default templates are available when creating your blog, but Blogger also allows users to fully alter all templates so that blogs can match the design of sites as a whole. Both Blogger and Blogspot offer premium services for a small additional fee. If you want to try blogging, this is a great place to start, because it's simple, easy, and free.

• LiveJournal: This is another free service, sort of. Although the "journals" in LiveJournal are free, you need to have an account creation code. There are two ways to get such a code: first, from an existing LiveJournal user and, second, by paying. In other words, the service is free only if you know someone using the service. However, one advantage of this system is that the journals tend to be interlinked into a kind of online community. LiveJournal also has a number of built-in "accessories" that allow users to supplement content through things like "mood icons" and "current music" entries.

• Diaryland: Another hosted service like LiveJournal (or Blogger with Blogspot hosting). Diaryland is a free service and offers many of the same options you'd find with Blogger or LiveJournal, the most fundamental of which is the ability to manage your blog through a web interface. The service is also true to its name: like a real diary, you can protect your blog with password protection, so that you can determine who (if anyone) can read it.

• Grey Matter: Greymatter is an extremely robust piece of web-based scripted software. It's written in Perl, a computer language used to run programs through on the web through CGI (common gateway interface). Although it takes some knowledge of installing and configuring CGI scripts, it has enormous flexibility in terms of look and functionality. Not only does it automatically generate all entry pages, but it also handles all archiving of older pages and it includes a built in commenting feature which will even email you every time someone adds a comment to your blog.

• Movable Type: Movable Type, like Greymatter, is web-based blog software, also written in Perl. Unlike Greymatter, however, Movable Type has the ability to store entries in a mySQL database. Otherwise, Movable Type mas much the same power and flexibility of Greymatter, with many of the same advanced features, such as a built-in search engine. Movable Type has the added ability to import blogs from other services such as Blogger. However, it does require some knowledge of script installation and configuration.

• BlogComp: BlogComp is a tool that allows you to compare the feature of up to five different blog tools or services at once. It covers a number of possible features and has explanations of what these features are in addition to noting whether or not the feature is included in a selected blog tool.

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