main page help

Blog stands for Web log. You can use this site to post your own log entries on a personal blog page. You can also post messages in customized chat rooms.

This help page covers the following topics:

  • Viewing blogs as a guest
  • Signing up for an account
  • Customizing your main and info page
  • Customizing your bookmarks
  • Certifying your account as blog-worthy
  • Understanding plain text versus HTML
  • Understanding stylesheets

    • Viewing blogs as a guest

    When you visit blog.flup.org as an anonymous Web surfer, you can only view blogs. To view one, simply click a user name. You cannot vote in the polls or access chat rooms until you sign up for an account and log in.

    Signing up for an account

    An account grants you the following privileges:

    An account is also a required step if you plan to create your own blog page and chat rooms.

    To sign up for an account, complete the following steps:

    1. Visit blog.flup.org.
    2. Click New Account. The New account registration opens.
    3. Type your information into the fields and click the Submit button.
    4. Expect an e-mail from blog@flup.org. When you receive it, launch the URL inside of it. A registration page opens. Important: This link expires in two hours. If the link expired before you finished registering, return to step 1.
    5. Re-enter your username and password and click the Validate button.
    At this point, your subscription page opens and you can begin adding shortcuts to it.

    Attention: An account expires if you have not logged into it for six months. This deletes all your settings and bookmarks. Your blog and chat rooms only remain at the Webmaster's discretion.

    Customizing your main and info page

    Whenever you log into blog.flup.org with a regular account, you can make use of the following options from the main page:

    Subscribed blogs/chat rooms
    Appears by default whenever you log in. It lets you Subscribe to any blogs and chat rooms that you would want to access quickly. You will not receive any e-mail notification if any of these subscribed blogs and chat rooms get updated. This page simply allows you to maintain a list of shortcuts.
    Your info
    Displays the following information about you:
    Your bookmarks
    Links to your favorite Internet shortcuts. See Customizing your bookmarks for details.
    Your settings
    Customizes the following preferences for every time that you log in:
    Description
    Displays a block of Plain Text or HTML on your information page.
    Time zone
    Changes all blog and chat room times to the region/city that you selected. The default is America/Los_Angeles. If you cannot find your own city, select the city closest to you.
    Default blog input type
    Specifies whether to default your blog entry fields as HTML or Plain Text.
    Default chat input type
    Specifies whether to default your chat entry fields as HTML or Plain Text.
    Minimum number of old chat messages to view
    Specifies how many old (gray) chat messages to display in the chat rooms before the oldest messages start disappearing into the history.
    Minimum number of new chat messages to view
    Specifies how many new (yellow) chat messages to display in the chat rooms before the oldest yellow messages start disappearing into the history.
    Allow blog comments by default?
    Specifies whether to default your blog page to permit regular logged-in users to start chat threads under blog entries.
    Open bookmarks in new browser window?
    Specifies whether to launch a new Web browser window whenever a user clicks one of your blog.flup.org bookmarks.
    New Password
    Specifies a new log in password. You must type in your Old Password and New Password Again for the change to work.
    Create chat room
    Starts your own "bulletin board" forum where regular logged-in users can view messages, submit them, reply to them, and participate in online polls. See chat room help for details.
    User directory
    Lists all of the blogs and chat rooms hosted at blog.flup.org. You can click on users to view their info pages. From here, you can certify a user as blog-worthy.
    Help
    Displays online help for blog.flup.org as WIKI entries (which everyone can edit). If you log in to WIKI using the UserPreferences link, then you can click EditText to revise the online.
    Logout
    Logs you out of blog.flup.org, and returns your privileges to that of an anonymous Web surfer.
    New Entry, Comments, Statistics
    See blog help for details.
    Recent visitors
    Displays all of the users that visited blog.flup.org within the last five minutes. You can click on users to view their info pages.

    Customizing your bookmarks

    The bookmark manager can organize your favorite Internet links.

    To launch a URL, click on its bookmark. You can expand and collapse folders by clicking on them. You can also reposition bookmarks or folders by clicking on their up and down arrows.

    To add a new bookmark, complete the following steps:

    1. Select the existing folder or bookmark that you want the new bookmark to appear directly under. If you select a folder, then the bookmark will appear inside of it.
    2. In the URL field, specify the Web address that you want to bookmark. For example, http://blog.flup.org/. This field is required.
    3. In the Title field, specify the name of the bookmark. If you leave this field blank, then the bookmark manager uses the URL as the title.
    4. If you want to hide this bookmark from all users except you, select Private. This will mark your bookmark with a padlock icon.
    5. Click the New button.
    Your new bookmark should now appear directly under the bookmark or folder that you selected.

    To add a new folder, complete the following steps:

    1. Select the existing folder or bookmark that you want the new folder to appear directly under. If you select a folder, then the new folder will appear inside of it.
    2. In the Title field, specify the name of the folder. This field is required.
    3. If you want to hide this folder and its contents from all users except you, select Private. This will mark your folder with a padlock icon.
    4. Click the New Folder button.
    Your new folder should now appear directly under the bookmark or folder that you selected.

    You can also select a bookmark or folder to make use of the following actions:

    Edit
    Modifies the title or URL of a bookmark; modifies the title of a folder. You can also mark a bookmark or folder as Private to hide it from other users.
    Delete
    Erases either a bookmark or folder. Caution: Deleting a folder erases all of the contents within it.
    Cut
    Moves either a bookmark or folder (including contents) to your clipboard.
    Paste
    Appends your entire clipboard directly under the bookmark or folder that you selected.

    Additional options include:

    Clear clipboard when cutting
    Erases the entire clipboard whenever you cut another bookmark or folder.
    Main
    Links back to your subscription page.
    Export
    Displays XML source code for all of your bookmarks. You can then save this as HTML through your Web browser.

    Certifying your account as blog-worthy

    Blog-worthy certification grants you the following privileges:

    However, you cannot certify your own account as blog-worthy. A current user must certify your user name by completing the following steps on your behalf:

    1. Visit the user directory.
    2. Click the user name to certify. The About... page opens.
    3. In the Certify this user as pull-down menu, select Blog-worthy.
    4. Click the Submit button.
    When the user completes your certification, you can log into blog.flup.org and click Create blog. This creates an empty blog page in your name. You can then click your user name in the blog list to begin editing your blog. See blog help for instructions.

    Understanding plain text versus HTML

    If you select Plain Text as your entry field format, then anything you submit shows up as-is. You cannot stylize plain text in any way. For this type of formatting capability, you must use HTML (HyperText Markup Language).

    The World Wide Web uses HTML as its standard format. It basically provides a dictionary of labels, or tags, that you can surround plain text with to make it stand out. For example, a common HTML tag is the bold tag: <b></b>. If you surround a word with these tags: <b>hello</b>, then the word shows up like this in a Web page: hello.

    The following examples show how to use common HTML tags:

    <p>Welcome to my blog. This is paragraph one. Paragraph two is next.</p>
    Treats text like a paragraph. Meaning, one blank line precedes and follows the text. Use this tag to keep your text from stringing all together.

    I am the very model of a modern Major-General,<br />I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral.
    Forces a hard line break.

    <img src="http://put_Web_address_of_image_here" width=xx height=yy />
    Displays a picture. Since blog.flup.org does not host pictures, you must upload your picture to a different site (for example, Yahoo! Photos), and point to its Web address with the <img> tag. The width and height attributes specify the picture dimensions (pixel width by pixel height). Although these two attributes are optional, they help speed up the picture's load time.

    Example: <img src="http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/b657d309/bc/My+Photos/California+Adventure.jpg" width="180" height="216" />

    <a href="http://put_Web_address_here>link to Web site</a>
    Makes the text clickable so that when a Web surfer clicks the text, your specified Web address launches.

    <b>strong</b>
    Bolds the text. Same as <strong></strong>.

    <i>emphasis</i>
    Italicizes the text. Same as <em></em>.

    <ul><li>Bullet one.</li><li>Bullet two.</li></ul>
    Lists text as bulleted items.

    <ol><li>Number one.</li><li>Number two.</li></ol>
    Lists text as numbered items.

    <dl><dt>term</dt><dd>definition</dd></dl>
    Lists text as term/definition items (the definition gets indented).

    <pre>Life is a mystery,
    everyone must stand alone</pre>
    Mimics plain text.

    <tt>code word</tt>
    Displays the text in a mono spaced font.

    <table><tr><th>Heading cell</th></tr><tr><td>Cell</td></tr></table>
    Formats text into a table.
    <tr><th>Heading cell</th></tr> specifies the bolded header row.
    <tr><td>Cell</td></tr> specifies a regular body row.

    In addition to the HTML markup, blog.flup.org provides a special <spoiler> tag for hiding TV/movie plot twists. For example, if you want to comment on the twist in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" but do not want to ruin it for people who haven't seen it yet, then you would surround the comment like so:

    <spoiler>Love that "Luke, I am your father," part.</spoiler>

    This tag then hides the text in a same-color background. To view this invisible text, simply highlight it with your cursor.

    Understanding stylesheets

    Stylesheets are .CSS files that list the rules for formatting a Web page. For example, the default system stylesheet colors every blog box gray and defaults all body text to the "Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" font family.

    To change the appearance of your blog page, you can utilize the CSS Editor. See Updating your blog page for details.