Personal Blogs @ LVC

New themes!

hill — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:53:24 +0000

Hey everyone, we now have a boat-load of new themes to choose from. Not all of them have been tested here, but give them a whirl and see what you can find. Under Site Admin, go to Design > Themes. Enjoy.

How to administer your blog

hill — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:41:11 +0000

Some blog theme designs do not automatically include a “site admin” link, which is where you go to edit your content, post new content, change themes, etc. Here’s how to get access to the administration pages so you can write stuff, log in, etc.

Type your blog URL in the browser address box, but add the following at the end: /wp-admin
It’ll look like this: http://csunix1.lvc.edu/wordpress/recording/wp-admin/
Bookmark this so you can easily get there anytime you want.
Now, to add a “site admin” or log in link to your home page, click on Design > Widgets. Add “meta”.
Note that some themes do not allow widgets, so they already have a site admin/log in option on the site. (What’s a widget? Extra menu functionality for the site, including things such as blogroll (list of external links), meta (site admin), calendar, search, tag clouds, etc.)
Add any others you want to try, then click “save changes”.
You’ll see Site Admin OR Log In on your site now.

Adding YouTube videos

hill — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:40:23 +0000

Wordpress does not allow using the embed code that’s used to post a YouTube video directly into your webpage, but we’ve installed a special plugin that fixes this. First of all, there are a couple ways to include video into your site: direct link to your video by pasting the URL into linked text OR directly embed the video into the page where you see it on the screen. If option #2 is what you want, read on:

1. Go to your blog site’s admin page by adding “wp-admin” to your URL. You’ll see four menu options on the right near the top of the screen: Site Admin, Settings, Plugins, Users. Click Plugins.

2. You’ll see a list of available plugins (we’ll add more over time). Click Activate for the one(s) you want to use. In this case you’ll activate SmartTube.

3. Now go to Write > Posts and click on the HTML button on the right of the editing window.

4. Paste the exact URL of your video from YouTube directly into the editing window. Don’t link this to any text. Do NOT use the embed code from YouTube. Just the URL.

4. NOW - add a “v” after the http in this URL. It should look like this: httpv://www.youtube.com/xxxxxxxx.

Click save, then view the post. Very cool!

This plugin only works for YouTube.

LVC now offers (unofficial) personal blogs

admin — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:54:46 +0000

Now anyone in the LVC community can set up their own web log (blog) and start posting pretty much anything…comments, photos, class documents, whatever. It’s easy to set up and easy to maintain. Note that there is no official LVC technical support for this feature, so you’ll have to work mostly on your own and in conjunction with other users who are running their own blogs. Support information is available at Wordpress.org. Faculty are encouraged to contact Dr. Hill for information. Sign up and have fun!