The Knitting Fiend

I was going to call this “How to Read Blogs for Newbies”, then I realized my Mom won’t know what a Newbie is. Still, she is a “advanced-newbie”, and she emails me questions. I’m writing this article so she can learn how to read blogs more efficiently.

Before really jumping into the article, I want you to get more comfortable. If you find yourself squinting because the text is too small, you can probably fix that. The precise method will vary depending on your browser, so you may need to adapt these instructions a bit. Now, look at the top of your screen; find a bar that contains words similar to “File”, “Edit”, “View”, and “Tools”. Use your mouse to pull down the menu called “View”. Likely as not, you’ll see the words “text zoom”; select that. You should now see a sort of menu that let’s you adjust the magnification. Pick 120% and watch the type increase. If it’s still too small, pick 150% and so on.

Now, I’ll describe some features common to many blogs; understanding these may help you get the most out of my blog and other blogs. If you write a blog and realize you don’t use these conventions, you might consider adopting them.

So, for Mom (and even newer blog surfers who find this using Google) here we go: “How to read blogs, ‘N’ easy steps.”

1. Open the page the same way you open a normal web page.

   If it’s a blog, you will probably see “main” area, and some sidebars. My blog has a main area and a double column sidebar. The content of the sidebar varies. Just begin reading the “core” area. (Ok. You did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this!)

   If the text appears to end mysteriously, but contains a colored text that seems to say something like “more”, or “continue” click the colored text and notice what happens.

   (I had more inserted here. It may or may not have appeared depending on how you arrived at this article. It should be gone now.)

   If you really like the page, set a book mark so you can find the address again.

2. Wait a few days, and use your book mark to visit the blog. What you see when you arrive may surprise you.

   If, your first visit was to the blog’s main page rather than an individual article, and the blog author has written a new entry, you will be see new content at the blog. In contrast, if you visited and set a bookmark to the individual article, you will return to the precise article you bookmarked.

   If you are new to blogs, you may be asking yourself: ‘How do I know if I am at the “main” page or an individual article?’ There are two ways, and I will provide an over-simplified answer first, and elaborate later. The oversimplified answer is: The URL shown in your browser’s navigation bar will be shorter in length than the URL for individual articles.

   For example, if you are visiting my main page, the URL will read “http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog” or possibly, “http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/index.php”. If you are visiting this particular “individual article”, the address will begin with “http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/376″. It may also include some extra characters; for example, it may end with http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/376#more-376″ http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/376#comments”.

3. So, what should you do if you visit a blog, like the individual article, and would like to book mark the individual article rather than the whole page? Obviously, you will need load the URL of the individual article. But how do you discover that?

   The exact procedure varies from blog to blog, but there are two common practices.

   One common practice is that titles of individual articles are hyperlinks to the individual article. If you pass your mouse over the title of any article at my blog, you will likely notice the color changes. (If the color doesn’t change download and install a new version of your browser. Yours is old!)

   If you double click, your browser will load the URL of the individual article.

   A second even more common practice is to provide a link to the individual article near the word “comments” at the bottom of the page. If you scroll to the bottom of each of my articles, you will notice the word “comments” with some listed in red just to the right. If you click the red text next to “comments”, your browser will load the individual article, which also displays the comments people may have left. (Feel free to enter comments if you like. Most bloggers like comments provided they aren’t rude. If the author has special rules for comments, they will inform you!)

   Unfortunately, sometimes the link to the article is slightly disguised. Bloggers who use “Blogger.com’s” free blogging service and select their main template. On those blogs, you will find a ‘#’ symbol in the color the page uses to emphasize hyperlinks. Only those who are aware blogs commonly include such links, and that they are often in the authors chosen hyper link color (mine is red) are likely to guess that’s the link to the article. But, now you’re one of those people.

   As you can see, my blog follows both conventions: The title of individual articles is a hyperlink, a hyperlink to individual articles is provided at the bottom near the word “comments”. You may find blogs that follow neither convention; they are, in my opinion “less than ideally organized”

4. What if i, you googled and find yourself at an individual article, think it’s terrific, and would like to visit the main blog to find the most recent article. How do you find it’s URL?

   Many, many blogs make the title of the whole blog a hyperlink. If you scroll to the very top of this web page, you will find the words “The Knitting Fiend” in white type. Before doing what I describe next, read the finish reading the next paragraph paragraph, and remember that you will need to use the “back” button on your bowser to return to the individual page containing the article about reading blogs.

   Now, scroll up, find the title “The Knitting Fiend”. Before clicking, notice the white text changes to black. This suggests it’s a hyperlink. Click on the words. The main page will load; the new URL will read: http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/. Scroll around and notice there are three articles on the page. That’s the main page. I hope you remember to use your back button and scroll down to return to this article to continue learning!

5. Next, you my notice the text on my blog displays in one of four colors: black white and bright red and dark red.

   The blog author decides which colors to use at their site, but it is common for blogs to use a main color for most of the text and other colors to highlight hyperlinks. My “main” color is black. At my site, black text is rarely a hyperlink. I use white, or bright or dark red to indicate hyperlink. Bright red indicates links you have not visited; dark red indicates links you have visited and white is used for the links in the title area which I thought might be distracting if displayed in red. I used black for article titles for the same reason. I figure some visitors know titles are often hyperlinks and may “test” with their mouse. Knowing that many won’t, I include the link to comments at the bottom of the page.

   Do remember though: using color for links is conventional, but some bloggers sometimes violate this convention; most violate it at least partially. (As I do for titles). However, knowing unusually colors generally indicate hyperlinks can be helpful.

6. Now, let’s turn to the sidebar.

   The content of sidebars varies dramatically, but most contain many hyperlinks. You may find links to recent articles at the blog you are visiting, recent comments by visitors, links to other blogs, ads and anything the blogger might want to stuff in the sidebar. You may also find a number of small rectangular images; these are often links too. If you click one, you’ll often find yourself at another blog or web page.

   I advise having fun clicking things in sidebars. But, before you do, make sure you understand how to use your “back button” or how to close a window on your browser! Some link open new windows, some load the new page in the current window. It’s impossible to predict which will occur in advance.

7. Here is a final common feature of blogs: If you visit many, you will find the display may ‘break’ from time to time. This happens for a variety of reasons. With some blog software, it can happen when someone leaving a comment forgets to close a tag on their html! I went to the library yesterday and my sidebar had a display “issue” which I am trying to fix. (Unfortunately, the display is broken at the library, but not at home. So, fixing will require guessing, going to the library to check, and then guessing again. )

   If the blog display appears broken in any way, it can be useful to leave a comment in a comment box, explaining what you are, or are not seeing. I can’t speak for all blog authors, but I’d appreciate the information; that way, I can at least try to fix the problem.

8. If you scroll over my page, you will notice my blog has a number of other features that seem convenient. These include an “email this article” link, a “previous article/ next article links”, I didn’t invent these features, so they aren’t “unique”. That said, they are not so common as to be “conventional”. The only way to learn what they do is click and try!

Those are the main points I wanted to provide for my Mom. If you slogged through this, I hope you found it useful. (I’ll be posting Stockinette Ad Naseum III this afternoon.)