Blogging 101

Since I started doing this, I've had a ton of people ask me "What is a blog, anyways?" Although I'm relatively new to this, the concept is simple. So, I thought I'd give anybody interested the low-down on what these things are and what they are all about.

Basically, a blog is short for a weblog. In other words, it's an online journal. It's a place where people can post thoughts, news, advice, insight, opinions, or anything else they can think of. A majority of blogs have a "target audience". That is, they focus on a certain subject or area, ranging anywhere from technology to stapler maintenance. Mine, on the other hand, varies with the weather. It's anything from how my day went to something cool I read about in the news.

In order to "create" a blog, there are a number of services available. I use a free, online service called Blogger. These basically do all the work for you, meaning if you can type in your thoughts, it'll post it and make it look nice. You'll also notice a lot of people using software such as MovableType and TypeKey.

To go along with this is a photoblog. As you may have already guessed, it's a blog made up of pictures. Sometimes they tell a story, sometimes they're just good pics. It all depends on who is composing it.

You may have noticed on my homepage that there is a link for My BlogRoll. If you go to this, you'll see an ever-changing collection of feeds & links. A LOT of sites offer RSS feeds. "RSS" stands for Really Simple Syndication. In other words, if I have a link to "Evhead" under "Miscellaneous", then anytime he updates his site or adds something new, that link in My BlogRoll updates as well. It's comparable to getting an email and it then showing up in your inbox.

Finally, you may have also noticed on my site that there is the option to Syndicate this site with an XML Feed. That will essentially create the feed (RSS) that I mentioned above. For those of you using Mozilla Firefox (if you're not, you should be) for your web browser, doing this for any site is easy. If there is an orange icon in the bottom right corner of your window resembling a box with a speaker in it, you can simply click on it and subscribe to that feed. For you Internet Explorer (IE) junkies, it's still pretty easy. You just have to find an icon on that page that either 1.) is a box that says "XML" or 2.) is the orange speaker icon. Click, subscribe, and it'll update in your favorites list all the time. For an example, check out ESPN and look beside ESPN Headlines on the right side of the main picture. You should see "XML".

This may seem like a lot, but, like anything else, it's very straightforward once you get the hang of it. It's not only a great way to get your voice heard, but it's a quick and easy way to follow information posted on hundreds of sites from a single location.