HELP I want to post stuff to the web but I don't know where to start
I've been having lots of conversations lately with folks who want to get a website, create a blog, post photos, or keep in touch via the Web. This post will cover some useful and fairly basic ways to get yourself online.
I'd like to start by sharing my 2 cents worth about why I think it's important for the average person to have their life (or parts of it) posted online.
First, it allows people to find you. If you search Google or some other search tool for "John Daharsh" you will find me. It helps that my name is somewhat rare, but I look people up this way all the time, and if they have put much about themselves out there, I can find them.
Second, the web needs good people. More and more, as people post all their thoughts and ramblings online, the web "leans." Around election time here in the US, it seemed as though the web was leaning WAY left politically. A few years ago, it seemed that all you could find online was pornography. SO the more "average" people who get online help to bring some sense of stability. And there are those who live well, who live what I would call a beautiful life, whose thoughts can provide solace to weary souls on the web.
Third, the web is becoming a very social space. You can join groups of people who are friends or family, or have similar interests, and share all sorts of useful information and experiences with them. You can develop friendships with people all over the world and help sort of "bring the world together."
Finally, it's fun. The more you share, the more friends and family and strangers will interact with you. Getting comments posted on something you wrote or a photo you took is like getting a Christmas present in July.
OK on to the technology. I am assuming that you have access to the web from home on a computer that you own. If you rely on the computer at the local library to access the web, you will be a little limited in what you can do.
The basic level of using the web to communicate is by email. If you have an email account that you don't really use, I would recommend Gmail. Unfortunately if you do not already have an email account somewhere, you can't just "sign up" for a Gmail account. For those who have no email account, just go to www.hotmail.com and sign up. If you already have an email account and would like a Gmail account, email me and I will send you an invitation. At the time I am writing this I have 50 invitations left.
I recommend Gmail because they do a great job of tracking conversations, they allow you 1Gb (Giga-byte -- a whole lot) of storage, and it's really easy to search through past conversations.
Once you get past sending and receiving email, I would recommend creating a blog. "Blog" is short for weblog, and is generally thought of as an online diary. I call my primary blog an "Online Journal" because I think the word "Blog" sounds ugly. This post is part of my technology blog, I have a family blog and have started a class blog to sort of reunite friends from my High School graduating class.
To get started blogging, go to www.blogger.com and sign up and get started. It's pretty straightforward. One word of advice, if you start posting, keep posting. Don't be discouraged if people don't read or comment. As you continue to post, search engines will pick up your content, and if you post under your real name, eventually someone will look you up and get in touch with you or start reading. I won't cover all the different settings for blogger in this post, if I get any feedback on this article I can cover that in the future.
You may notice that I have photos on this blog and my online journal. I can do this because I actually publish these blogs to my website's webserver. If you do not have a web site to publish to, you can't upload photos directly to the your blogger.com hosted blog. In this case, and for folks who just want to post photos, I would recommend Flickr. My flick account is here. This topic is one that if you don't have your own computer you may be limited.
Flickr currently lets you post up to 100 photos for free. You can comment on them when you upload them, and you can give friends and family who also set up flickr accounts access to photos that you don't want everyone to see. Send me an email if you want to use Flickr and I'll send you an invitation.
Once you have a blog and start using Flickr, you can display photos that are hosted on Flickr in your blogger-hosted blog. This post on my class blog is an example of this.
Well that should get you started. There is obviously much more to this whole online experience that you can get into, but the information above will get you online for free and is fairly easy.
I'd like to start by sharing my 2 cents worth about why I think it's important for the average person to have their life (or parts of it) posted online.
First, it allows people to find you. If you search Google or some other search tool for "John Daharsh" you will find me. It helps that my name is somewhat rare, but I look people up this way all the time, and if they have put much about themselves out there, I can find them.
Second, the web needs good people. More and more, as people post all their thoughts and ramblings online, the web "leans." Around election time here in the US, it seemed as though the web was leaning WAY left politically. A few years ago, it seemed that all you could find online was pornography. SO the more "average" people who get online help to bring some sense of stability. And there are those who live well, who live what I would call a beautiful life, whose thoughts can provide solace to weary souls on the web.
Third, the web is becoming a very social space. You can join groups of people who are friends or family, or have similar interests, and share all sorts of useful information and experiences with them. You can develop friendships with people all over the world and help sort of "bring the world together."
Finally, it's fun. The more you share, the more friends and family and strangers will interact with you. Getting comments posted on something you wrote or a photo you took is like getting a Christmas present in July.
OK on to the technology. I am assuming that you have access to the web from home on a computer that you own. If you rely on the computer at the local library to access the web, you will be a little limited in what you can do.
The basic level of using the web to communicate is by email. If you have an email account that you don't really use, I would recommend Gmail. Unfortunately if you do not already have an email account somewhere, you can't just "sign up" for a Gmail account. For those who have no email account, just go to www.hotmail.com and sign up. If you already have an email account and would like a Gmail account, email me and I will send you an invitation. At the time I am writing this I have 50 invitations left.
I recommend Gmail because they do a great job of tracking conversations, they allow you 1Gb (Giga-byte -- a whole lot) of storage, and it's really easy to search through past conversations.
Once you get past sending and receiving email, I would recommend creating a blog. "Blog" is short for weblog, and is generally thought of as an online diary. I call my primary blog an "Online Journal" because I think the word "Blog" sounds ugly. This post is part of my technology blog, I have a family blog and have started a class blog to sort of reunite friends from my High School graduating class.
To get started blogging, go to www.blogger.com and sign up and get started. It's pretty straightforward. One word of advice, if you start posting, keep posting. Don't be discouraged if people don't read or comment. As you continue to post, search engines will pick up your content, and if you post under your real name, eventually someone will look you up and get in touch with you or start reading. I won't cover all the different settings for blogger in this post, if I get any feedback on this article I can cover that in the future.
You may notice that I have photos on this blog and my online journal. I can do this because I actually publish these blogs to my website's webserver. If you do not have a web site to publish to, you can't upload photos directly to the your blogger.com hosted blog. In this case, and for folks who just want to post photos, I would recommend Flickr. My flick account is here. This topic is one that if you don't have your own computer you may be limited.
Flickr currently lets you post up to 100 photos for free. You can comment on them when you upload them, and you can give friends and family who also set up flickr accounts access to photos that you don't want everyone to see. Send me an email if you want to use Flickr and I'll send you an invitation.
Once you have a blog and start using Flickr, you can display photos that are hosted on Flickr in your blogger-hosted blog. This post on my class blog is an example of this.
Well that should get you started. There is obviously much more to this whole online experience that you can get into, but the information above will get you online for free and is fairly easy.
posted by John Daharsh at 2:10 PM
1 Comments:
Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.
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