How to make a blog

I am Harry Hanbury of PC Bug, the computer user's group in Naples, Florida and this is a demonstration post to show the audience at the September PC Bug meeting how to create a blog.

If you go to Google, then click More, near the top of the screen, then Even More at the bottom of the pull down menu, you will see a link to Blogger; a free and easy way to chronicle any story you wish to immortalize on the web. It is easy to attach hot links by simply adding the url (universal resource locator), in the text, like this http://www.harryandtheresa.blogspot.com/ . Clicking on the link will take you to my summer adventure on the motorcycle with my wife Theresa. http://www.anewpc4me.blogspot.com/ will take you to a blog I'm writing to illustrate how to build a PC.

It is easy to add a photo by clicking on the "Add Image" button at the top of the editing screen. The picture will be placed at the top of the post, then you drag it to where you want it to be in the layout of the post. I just dragged a random photo from the summer trip to the spot below.

Text will wrap around the picture and it can be sized to small, medium or large, (this one is medium). It can also be right, center or left aligned.

Likewise, movie clips can be inserted just as easily. Here is a short segment, edited in Picasa 3, of a motorcycle jump we saw at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota.

That's about it. I know this lesson seems superficial, but if you dig in, you will be able to teach yourself how to do it faster than I could write the instructions here. Really, it's very easy. It even spell checks your work, but not your grammar, so be careful, or everyone who reads will know you skipped your English homework assignments.

If you turn out to be a gifted writer with a great subject, you might click the Monetize Tab at the top of the editing screen to let Google place banner ads in your blog. Then you will get paid, assuming you get lots of hits. Guys like Matt Drudge make a living by blogging. See http://www.drudgereport.com/ for an example of his work.

Have fun and if you do write a blog, come to the PC Bug Meeting and tell us about it. Don't forget to check out the PC Bug web page, which is pretty much a blog about computer things written by the club's Past President, Don Beach. See: www.pcbug.org .