Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools

You'll learn the ingredients of a successful blog, and then get detailed installation, configuration and operation instructions for the leading blogging software: Blogger, Radio Userland, Movable Type, and Blosxom. After showing you how to acquire, set-up, and run these leading software packages, Essential Blogging takes you through the more advanced features, so that by the time you finish, you'll be up and blogging with the best of them.

"Essential Blogging" covers:

the important components of a blog and a blog post

installing and configuring the tools

a survey of desktop blogging clients

advice and experience from real-world bloggers

hosted blogging with Blogger and Blogger Pro

desktop blogging with Radio Userland

server blogging with Movable Type

posting, editing, and deleting blog entries

adding pictures to blog entries

syndicating your stories with RSS

consuming RSS feeds with Radio Userland

customizing the appearance of your blog with templates

managing and customizing archives of blog entries

adding comments to your blog

self-hosting your blog vs using a blog-hosting service

going under the hood with the Blosxom blogging system

Written by prominent bloggers and authors of blogging tools, "Essential Blogging" is a no-nonsense guide to the technology of blogging.

Things in the world of blogging move fast. Minor celebrities rise and fall, new software is continually being released, new jargon is invented. It's hard for a paper book to keep up. There are some aspects of blogging which are gaining some permanancy. Unfortunately, this book only skims those topics, preferring to spend nearly 200 pages describing how to use particular (late 2002) versions of a few blogging tools.

The most incisive and thought-provoking part of the book is the last ten pages - interesting quotes from a range of bloggers. It's the only bit which shows any of the excitement and "buzz" of blogging and gets you wanting to get involved.

This is not a bad book. But it's not really the book described in its own advertsing. If you want a rough guide to comparing, installing and using a small selection of the well-known blog software offerings, this book is right for you. If you want a more thoughtful and detailed overview of what blogging is all about, why you should do it, what the terminology means, or how it works "under the hood", keep looking.


Not enough code for me   July 14, 2003
 8 out of 13 found this review helpful

I bought this book hoping for a little more code (html or java) to help me design my own weblog, but it left me hanging. It gives a great description of what a weblog is and how to get it up and running, but lacks in design elements.


Read this before you start blogging   May 10, 2003
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

Reading this book before you get started with a blog will save you time, money, and frustration. It will give you a fantastic overview of what is available as far as platforms and tools for blogging. It is not a reference, and it omits a lot of things one may wish to do with their blog. But it will be helpful to the novice. While this is a beginner's book, it is not written at a "Dummy" level, and the typical computer user will be right at home. The only disadvantage of the book is that once you zero in on a particular blog management system (e.g., Blogger) the sections dealing with the other systems are no longer particularly useful.


Poorly Edited, Minorly Informative   March 10, 2003
 13 out of 17 found this review helpful

The book does say that if you are currently running a blog, a lot of the information contained will not be new, so I understand they are marketing to a newbie crowd. However, even for newbies, I really don't think the information contained therein is very useful. Mostly do to poor editing and layout. For example, in the first chapter they include screen shots to show you what a blog looks like.. seems reasonable enough. However, when the author is talking about including a hyperlink to whatever page his post may be talking about, they give full page wide screenshot of the word "Link"... it's just this big empty white space with a tiny word... "Link" just floating in the middle of it. Totally unhelpful.


ESSENTIALLY FOR NOVICE BLOGGERS   February 28, 2003
 11 out of 12 found this review helpful

With its slow-and-steady pattern, "Essential Blogging" is the book that will initiate novices into the blogging ritual. It highlighted every important tactic used in today's Weblog: including vital hints on how to select, install, and run blogging utilities. It also advices its reader on how to integrate random entry display with a blog front-page.
This book has a set of easy-to-follow rules on how to create, maintain, and collaborate weblogs. And for those who already know what they want, it provided guides which would enable them set-up their systems.
However, its worst offence is that a great chunk of its information were overtly summarized: thus, ensuring that its reference-value is curtailed. Also, it failed to expatiate on blogging essentials like: Greymatter and Live Journal.
Still, the fact that it served nourishing tips and code examples, raised its profile. It is a good starting-block for weblog beginners; but, expert bloggers may afford to overlook it.