Akismet Plugin Method

1. Go to the Plugins page (’Plugins‘ link on the far right menu of your dashboard) and activate the Akismet plugin by locating the plugin in the list and clicking ‘activate‘.
2. A new menu item will appear under your Comments menu called Akismet Spam (Akismet will automatically filter your comments and catch the spam into its own listing)
3. To delete your spam click the Delete All button from the Akismet Spam menu

Transferring your blog to BarnMate

1. Login to your blog’s dashboard (where you create new posts)
2. Click the Manage tab (located just under your blogs name on the left side)
3. Click Import from the menu below the Manage tab
4. Click the name of the blog you are transferring blog posts from
5. Follow the on-screen instructions

Thats all there is to it. All your existing posts will be transferred to your new BarnMate blog.

Embedded URL Method - Any embedded video method

1. Goto YouTube and find the video you want to embed
2. Locate the ‘embed’ link on the right side of the YouTube video page and copy it
3. With your post open switch to HTML mode by clicking the HTML link in the top right of the post editor
4. Paste the link copied in Step 2 to the location in the post where you want the video placed
5. Save or publish the post and the video should be embedded

Smart YouTube plugin Method (better method) - YouTube videos only

1. Go to the Plugins page (’Plugins‘ link on the far right menu of your dashboard) and activate the Smart YouTube plugin by locating the plugin in the list and clicking ‘activate‘.
2. When you want to display YouTube video in your post, paste the video link (text only and don’t make it a clickable link) with httpv:// (notice the ‘v’). Example video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QujA8YYgTWU - now you would just add a ‘v’ after the http.
3. Once the link is insert and the ‘v’ added you can apply formatting to the link like ‘center’ to center the video in a post.

(there is an options page under the Setting where you can change some of functionality of this plugin - default settings should work well for most blogs)

Optionals for Smart YouTube

• to display a high quality video then just use httpvh:// instead httpv://.
• to post a HD (DVD quality, 720p) quality video you would use httpvhd:// (’vhd’ for video high definition)
• To use video deep linking just add &start=time parameter at the end of url. For example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QujA8YYgTWU&start=30 will start the video 30 seconds in.

You will now be presented with a form when you can change any of the information associated with you. Go through the form and make the changes you like and press ‘Update Profile’. Your profile is now updated.

Enjoy blogging!

(the following must be performed from your blog’s Dashboard which is seen after logging in)

1. Design: Changing the design of the blog

You just signed up and noticed that the default blog is very plain. To change the design of the blog click the ‘Design‘ link on the far right menu. You will see the current theme applied to your blog in the Current Theme section. To change the blog’s theme look through the Available Themes and select a theme you like. By clicking the theme a larger preview will be displayed. Clicking the X on the left closes the preview while clicking on the Activate link on the top right of the preview applies this theme to your entire blog. That’s all there is to it.

2. Write: Creating your first blog post

Diretly under your blogs name, in the dashboard, are three links: Write, Manage and Comments. The Write section is where you create blogs posts, new pages for your blog (more on this in the future) and links for your blog (more on this in the future). Lets click the Write link and then make sure the Post link below is highighted (by default when you click Write the blog defaults to writing a post). Now give your blog post a Title (2 - 7 words works best) and create the post (using the Word like editor to give it style, add embedded media, add images).

Below the Post section is the Tag and Category sections. Tags are single word entries seperated by commas that describes a post to allow readers to easily find similar posts. Categories are a more broad way to group your posts. Usually posts will have only 1 category (maybe 2) and a few tags (up to 5-7).

Now that the post is created you have two main options on the right, Save or Publish. Save just saves it to your blog posts to manage while publish actually pushed the post to your blog so your readers can read it.

(a shortcut to writing posts is clicking the Write a New Post from your main dashboard page)

3. Manage: How to edit or delete a post

Also under your blogs name, in the dashboard is Manage. Manage is where you manage existing posts, pages, links, tags, categories and a bit more. Lets click the Manage -> Posts for now to see how to edit or delete a post. After clicking the link you will see all the posts you have created, regardless if they are published (displayed on your blog) or just saved.

To delete a blog post click the checkbox on the right of the blog post or posts that you would like to delete. After selecting the post click the Delete button just above the post list. The post(s) will now be removed from your post list and removed from your blog.

To edit a blog post (this includes publishing a blog post that has only been saved and not published as of yet) click the title of the blog post to edit.  A window will open with the blog post ready for editing.  Edit what you need to and press Save or Publish (just like creating a blog post).  If you only want to publish a blog post which has only been saved just press Publish.

more information to come in the future…

Sign up now and start blogging today!