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Monday, July 2, 2007

Online Photo Journals - Easy and FREE!

I'm the go-to-girl with my family and friends when it comes to computers. I certainly don't know everything, but I generally know where to start.

But technology is running rampant. I admit it, I can no longer keep up. So from time to time we're going to learn something together. And this is the first thing.

Photo Blogging.

For those of you who aren't familiar with blogging, its a word derived from "Web Log". A web log is an online journal. Pretty simple. So a photo blog is just an online journal with pictures. Easy, right? Well, until today this is something I'd never done. I'd maintained simple blogs in the past, so I knew where to start.

Is photo blogging for you? Well, if you want to share pictures with family and friends, and you want to add a story to each photo, then yes, it IS for you.

Is it easy? Once you get the hang of it, it really is easy. It took me quite awhile to figure out...but luckily I've documented my steps and posted them here for you, so there's no guesswork. Now wasn't that nice?

You may want to print this out.

So lets go....here's your step-by-step tutorial. Everything you'll be doing is completely FREE. You WILL need to download a program, but we'll get there. On dial up it should only take about 10-20 minutes, but its essential. I have mid-speed DSL and it took about 5 minutes.



1. GET A BLOG ACCOUNT

** Now don't get fancy on my by trying to use a different blog service. It won't work with the following steps...just do what I tell you...GOT IT??

- Goto www.Blogger.com (look, you're already there!)

- Click "Create Your Blog Now"

- Follow the steps until your
account is created. (Make a note of the url for your blog)



2. DOWNLOAD THE PHOTO UPLOAD SOFTWARE

Hello is a software that lets you share pictures with your friends and family. It's also used to add photos to your blog.

- Goto www.Hello.com

- Click Download Now

- Create an account (you'll get a confirmation email as well)

- Download & install the software



3. RUN THE SOFTWARE

** You have to be connected to the internet to do this

- You'll see a welcome screen, click it and it will go away.

- You'll see a sign-in screen. Enter your username and password (remember, you just created it)

- Now you're at the interface, this is the fun part!



4. ADD BLOGGERBOT AS A FRIEND

This is the step that will allow you to add pictures and comments directly from Hello into your Blog.

- From the Friends menu, choose Add.

- Enter “BloggerBot” as the friend Hello login name.

- Click Add. The BloggerBot tab opens. This tab shows the Blogger login screen. Log on to Blogger using your Blogger user name and password.

- Click Sign In. The Settings page appears.



5. IMPORT & PUBLISH PICTURES/BLOG

This is the step to repeat each time you'd like to make a blog entry.

- If there isn't a tab above called BloggerBot, then double-click BloggerBot in your list. It will create the tab. Click the BloggerBot tab.

- Click "Send Pictures"

- You may be asked if you want to use Picasa or Explorer. If you have Picasa (another free download) then choose that. If not, Explorer is fine.

- Find the picture(s) you want to add to your blog

- A box will pop up asking you to select the friends to send the picture to. Click the "Add pictures to Recent" option.

- When you have added all of the pictures to Hello, click "Send Recent"

- Use the Ctrl key to select multiple pictures, or right-click your mouse and choose Select All if you'd like to add all of them.

- Click "Send to Friend"

- If you haven't set preferences already, it will ask you to do so here. You can leave everything at the default setting if you'd like (I did). Click Save.

- Now you'll see a little reel of your photos at the bottom. They'll be grayed out. Choose the first photo you'd like to comment on and send. It will appear
in the window above.

- To the bottom-right you'll see the comment box. Here you can write about the photo. You have to write something or it won't let you send. When you're done,
click "Publish"

- Move on to the next photo until you're done.

** If you just want to add a journal entry without a picture, choose the photo from the reel with the header "Blogger". Type your comments, and click
"Publish"

6. VIEW YOUR BLOG

- Now that you've published your photos and journal, you probably want to see it. Choose the photo from the reel with the header "Blogger", then click the flashing "Web Link" button. It will take you to your blog.

Tada!!

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