Jana's helpful blogging tips

As luck would have it, I'm like a blogging expert. You wouldn't know it from my somewhat drab-looking blog, or my lack of regular postings, or my hit-and-miss commenting, but I'm definitely an expert. And because I'm a kind and generous individual (and because I'd rather not work on homework right now) I'll share some of my vast knowledge with you!

Tip #1: Use Google Reader

Many people, including me, use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs. It's a fantastic service that saves loads of time - you type in all of your friends' blogs (and their friends' blogs, and so on) and it imports all of that blog's posts. Every time that blogger publishes a new post, your Google Reader account highlights that blog to alert you. Some bloggers choose to allow their full post to be sent to Google Reader, others choose 'partial feed' and you have to go to the actual blog to read the entire post. If you want to leave a comment, you also must go to the actual blog. It's seriously fabulous - to add this, just access your google account and there should be someplace that says 'try something new' where Google Reader will be listed!

Tip #2: EDIT, don't delete, your posts

This tip is related to the first tip, because there's a definite flaw with Google Reader and it affects you whether you use Reader or not. If you change your mind about a post and delete it, it will no longer appear on your blog. But it will remain on the Google Reader of anyone who subscribes to your blog. If the person tries to go to that post from your Google Reader, they will be notified that the page no longer exists, but they can still read what you wrote or see the pictures you posted. SO, if you suddenly regret posting that picture of yourself in a swimsuit or are having second thoughts about posting the word-for-word transcript of your argument with your mother-in-law, EDIT the post. Make it completely blank, type in gibberish, write about another topic completely, but DON'T delete it. Google Reader will show the edited version. If you delete it, there's currently no real way to 'get it back' from your subscribers. It won't appear on accounts of new subscribers (although all of your other previous posts will), so if you can get everyone to 'unsubscribe' then 'resubscribe' you're okay, but chances are that people subscribe to your blog that you don't know subscribe. Like me.

You may also want to contact Google/Blogger and let them know that you'd like this problem fixed: http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help Google doesn't have real contact information, but you can post a concern in their help group.

Tip #3: Be aware of your Blogger profile

Your blogger profile is different from your blog - it's the page that comes up when someone clicks on your blogger username, usually when you make a comment on another blog. Your blogger profile shows any blogs for which you're an 'author' as well as blogs you 'follow' if you use that feature. If you don't mind people finding your blog(s), then you're fine. BUT, if you comment on/contribute to popular, business-type blogs, then your blogger profile could be available to a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise see it. For instance, you may not mind if a friend of a friend of a friend accesses your blog, because at least there's a common link. But you may be uncomfortable with a total stranger who saw your comment on a photography/shopping/whatever blog that they found on craigslist/google/wherever being able to see your family blog and any blogs you 'follow.' There are settings that you can change to make your profile (not your blog) private, or not to show your blogs on your profile- just go to your blogger home page (dashboard, I think it's called) and click 'edit profile' . Whew, that was kind of confusing, eh?

Tip #4: Fix your timestamp

This isn't as vital to your privacy, but it's good to know - you can change what 'time' your post shows as having been published. Usually when you publish a post, the timestamp is reflective of the time that you began the new post, not when you hit 'publish'. This is fine if a) you don't care about the timestamp or b) you're a quick poster, so it's pretty close. But if you're like me and spend a LONG time working on a post before you publish it, you may want to manually change the time stamp. This is also important if you like to stay at the top of your friends' blog rolls on the sides of their blogs - they're usually listed by most recent post. I know that some people save drafts of posts to finish and post at a later time, in that case you can decide to keep the original time stamp to keep them in the order you began working on the posts or change the time stamp to reflect the order in which you finished and published them.

SO, on your 'create post' page of blogger, next to the 'label box' there's a link that says 'post options'. This is where you can change the post date and time!

Happy blogging!