Paul has asked me to put this page together for those of you who may be new to reading blogs so that I can answer a couple of questions that may not be immediately obvious if you haven’t spent much time reading blogs before.
What is a Blog?
You can find an answer this question by searching the web, like most anything else. Any search engine you prefer to use will yield a number of definitions. But in particular for our mutual friend Paul, this blog represents an evolution in the process of doing something he has done for almost all of his professional life. It is writing for publication. What’s different here is that he is publishing himself, without any filtering by an editor or sanctioning by a publishing house. So in that evolutionary change there is freedom. I anticipate that freedom will yield a side of Paul’s writing that only those of us who’ve been on his mailing list have known in the past. Stay tuned and see if you agree.
How do you comment?
One thing that characterizes blogs is that the reader can talk back to the author, more immediately and more directly than in most any other form of publication. At the end of each blog post (the entities that comprise a blog), there is a link that provides the opportunity to comment. If no comments have yet been made to that post, the link will say No Comments. If comments already exist, the number of previous comments will be listed on the link, i.e., 1 Comment, 2 Comments, etc. Just click that link, and you’ll be presented with a screen in which you can enter your comment and afterwards click submit to leave your comment for the author and the other readers of the blog. Don’t be hesitant to comment. Your comments are welcome. In fact, sometimes the comments on a blog post can be as interesting as the post itself.
There’s one other thing about commenting that you should be aware of. The first time you post a comment on this blog, your comment will be held for “moderation.” This means that an administrator will look at it to make sure it is a legitimate comment made by a real person and not one posted by an automated robot, so your comment will not show up on the blog, until it has been moderated. However, once you’ve had a post approved on the blog, any future comments you make will appear immediately.
How do you subscribe to the feed for this blog?
If you don’t even understand the question, then here is a video that will explain what a blog (or RSS) feed is and why it is a good idea to use them. This Google search will provide you more information about RSS feeds.
On this blog, there are links in the header image of Paul over in the lower right hand corner of that image to the RSS feed for both the content (meaning the individual posts) and for the comments that you, the readers, make. You can subscribe to either or both of them if you choose.
If you use Internet Explorer 7, this demo will explain how to subscribe to an RSS feed in that browser.
If you use Firefox, see this link to learn how to subscribe to feeds with it.
One of the better (meaning easier to use and understand) free web sites that will help you follow the feeds you subscribe to is Google Reader. This help document explains how to get started with it and is highly recommended.
But however you choose to follow Paul’s blog, please visit the site often so he can derive the joy of seeing his statistic go up and up and up. Thanks for reading this document. Click here to go back to the main page.
