BLOGGING FOR FREEDOM |
UNDERSTANDING RADIO USERLAND |
Like WordPress and Movable Type, Radio UserLand is a program that must be acquired and installed on your computer. Unlike WordPress and Movable Type, a boxed version of Radio UserLand is available, so you can install from a CD if that’s your preference. The faster route is to download a trial version of the program, which remains full-featured for 30 days, after which period you must buy a one-year subscription to continue using the program. That subscription pays for the server space in which your blog is stored and served to online visitors. Radio UserLand is a hosted blog platform like TypePad and Blogger, but differs from those two platforms by the fact that you must install a program on your computer to access the server space. When the downloaded file is on your computer, install the program as you would any other application.
At the end of the installation process, a page called It Worked! appears in your browser If your defaultbrowser is not already open, Radio UserLand asks for your browser and opens it. On the It Worked! page, fill in your name, e-mail address, and a password. All the other forms on the page are unnecessary in most cases. Click the Submit button and you’re on your way to blogging in Radio UserLand.
Now, about that browser. With most blogging services (a notable exception being MSN Spaces, profiled in Chapter 4), your choice of browser doesn’t matter to the appearance and functions of the blog service and your blog controls. But Radio UserLand is tailored for Internet Explorer (IE). The differences are important. So again, as I did when describing MSN Spaces. To start Radio UserLand and work on your blog, simply double-click the Radio UserLand desktop icon as with any other program. (You can open the program also in the All Programs menu from the Windows Start button.) When Radio UserLand opens, it displays your blog’s control panel in Internet
Explorer.
Radio UserLand is a powerful, highly configurable blog program containing more settings and options than this chapter can describe. A few of these settings are crucial and should be visited before posting entries.
A few things about this page to note:The title entry box is below the text entry box. Don’t forget to type a title for your blog entry. In most cases, you want to select the WYSIWYG radio button below the text box. That acronym stands for What You See Is What You Get, and clicking that choice shows everything in the text box (such as an embedded link) as it will appear in your published entry. Use the Source radio button for writing HTML tags. Use the drop-down menus to select paragraph choices (such as bold headers), font type, font size, and font color. Using multiple font colorsis usually a poor stylistic choice in a blog. The Link box turns your entry title into a link, and the URL (Web address) you type in that box determines the link destination. If you leave the box empty, the title link leads to the permalink, or unique entry page, for that entry. I always prefer the permalink option, because I think it’s natural for an entry title to connect the reader with the entry page.