Book Review - Blogging For Dummies by Brad Hill
Category Book Reviews
I know I've been blogging for awhile now, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to review this book... Blogging For Dummies by Brad Hill. Of course, some may say it's just the book I needed... :)
Contents:
Part 1 - The What, Where, Why, and How of Weblogs: Understanding Blogging at Last; Blogging Options; Living the Blogging Lifestyle
Part 2 - Starting a Blog Today: MSN Spaces; Yahoo! 360; Finding a Home in Blogger; Creating a TypePad Blog
Part 3 - Installing Your Own Blog Program: The Ins and Outs of DIY Blogging; Running a Movable Type Blog; Blogging with WordPress; Power Plus Ease in Radio Userland; Hybrid Blog Hosts - Power Without the Pain
Part 4 - Total Blog Immersion: Hooking into RSS Feeds; Rules of Blogosphere Citizenship; Blogging for Bucks (or Pennies); Using Your Real Voice - Podcasting; Photoblogging and Audioblogging
Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Blog Engines and Directories; Ten Resources for the Power Blogger
Glossary; Index
It seems that when most people start to blog, they learn a bit about blogging in general and then jump right to a familiar tool like Blogger or MSN Spaces. That's all well and good, but your style might not be best served by the blog choice you made. Hill does a pretty good job in categorizing the most prevalent blog tools available today, and then giving a basic install/usage overview for each. I was familiar with some of these, but the basics of Movable Type and WordPress were something I hadn't explored. After reading Part 2 and 3, you should have a pretty good idea of which tool fits your style and your anticipated direction. At that point, you can go online and start diving into your new tool of choice.
Even if you're a blogger with some history, there's still a few items here that might have slipped off your radar. I wasn't aware of the audioblogging technology that allows you to embed a spoken clip into a blog posting. Not necessarily something I want to do, but good to know of. Part 5 - The Part of Tens - is always a good area to find sites you didn't know about (like a few of the blog search engines and directories). There are a couple of sites that I could benefit from, and I'll be checking those out...
This is probably a bit more than Uncle Joe would want if he's asking "what's a blog", and the alpha male techno-nerd will likely find it a bit simplistic or light on coverage. But for the average power user or technology person looking to explore blogging, this might just be the broad coverage they need to start to put things into context...
I know I've been blogging for awhile now, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to review this book... Blogging For Dummies by Brad Hill. Of course, some may say it's just the book I needed... :)
Contents:
Part 1 - The What, Where, Why, and How of Weblogs: Understanding Blogging at Last; Blogging Options; Living the Blogging Lifestyle
Part 2 - Starting a Blog Today: MSN Spaces; Yahoo! 360; Finding a Home in Blogger; Creating a TypePad Blog
Part 3 - Installing Your Own Blog Program: The Ins and Outs of DIY Blogging; Running a Movable Type Blog; Blogging with WordPress; Power Plus Ease in Radio Userland; Hybrid Blog Hosts - Power Without the Pain
Part 4 - Total Blog Immersion: Hooking into RSS Feeds; Rules of Blogosphere Citizenship; Blogging for Bucks (or Pennies); Using Your Real Voice - Podcasting; Photoblogging and Audioblogging
Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Blog Engines and Directories; Ten Resources for the Power Blogger
Glossary; Index
It seems that when most people start to blog, they learn a bit about blogging in general and then jump right to a familiar tool like Blogger or MSN Spaces. That's all well and good, but your style might not be best served by the blog choice you made. Hill does a pretty good job in categorizing the most prevalent blog tools available today, and then giving a basic install/usage overview for each. I was familiar with some of these, but the basics of Movable Type and WordPress were something I hadn't explored. After reading Part 2 and 3, you should have a pretty good idea of which tool fits your style and your anticipated direction. At that point, you can go online and start diving into your new tool of choice.
Even if you're a blogger with some history, there's still a few items here that might have slipped off your radar. I wasn't aware of the audioblogging technology that allows you to embed a spoken clip into a blog posting. Not necessarily something I want to do, but good to know of. Part 5 - The Part of Tens - is always a good area to find sites you didn't know about (like a few of the blog search engines and directories). There are a couple of sites that I could benefit from, and I'll be checking those out...
This is probably a bit more than Uncle Joe would want if he's asking "what's a blog", and the alpha male techno-nerd will likely find it a bit simplistic or light on coverage. But for the average power user or technology person looking to explore blogging, this might just be the broad coverage they need to start to put things into context...
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