A Beginner's Guide to Blogging with MovableType

PART I: INTRODUCTION

This tutorial reviews how to create a blog using Movable Type (MT) and is based on a workshop I taught in 2003. A kind of "blogging for dummies," it is aimed at the beginner and assumes little knowledge of website design/building. However, programmers and other web gurus unfamiliar with blogging may find it useful.

This tutorial does NOT offer easy Movable Type installation instructions. If you are not comfortable installing and configuring a Perl script on a web server, I suggest you sign up for Movable Type's TypePad. It includes most of MT's features on a centrally hosted server that requires no installation or configuration.

ABOUT MOVABLE TYPE

Movable Type is a "decentralized web-based personal publishing system designed to ease maintenance of regularly-updated content." While there are other options such as Blogger and Livejournal, MT has many advantages such as its flexiblity and powerful features. It has quickly become the de facto content management system for bloggers.

The MT instructions herein, largely culled from the MT User Manual, provide only an overview of a few key features to simplify the process for the beginner.

If you have further questions see the User Manual. I recommend that you print it out in its entirety to keep as a reference.

ABOUT BLOGS

A blog, short for weblog, is a website of frequently updated, date-based, chronologically ordered entries, often described as an online journal. When a new post is added, the existing posts are shifted down and older posts are archived.

The first (hand coded) blogs were literally link-driven logs of websites, with commentary and/or personal asides. They essentially filtered the web for readers, hence the term weblog. Created by web enthusiasts/programmers who linked to cool stuff they found on the web, bloggers began adding commentary, posting daily, and reading one another's blogs. A community culture developed.

As content management systems like Movable Type were developed, it allowed "non-techies" to blog. The focus then moved from filter-style weblogs to journal-style blogs.

Blogs can include text, images, a compilations of links, or any combination thereof.

For more information about blogs see:

• Rebecca Blood's history of weblogs
• Blogging101 - a short, sweet overview
• Is Blogging a Fad? - this article concludes NOT
• Blogging goes mainstream - a CNN article on blogging

BLOG COMPONENTS

The typical components of a blog include:

• Blog title: The name of your blog.
• Blog description or tagline: An optional subheading or description of your blog.
• Entry date: The date the post was uploaded.
• Entry title: The title for the post.
• Entry body: The content of the post which can include text, images, links or any combination thereof.
• Time stamp or permalink: The time the post was uploaded which often links to an individual post. This enables others to link to a specific post within your blog.
• Author's name: Important for multi-author blogs.
• Comments: This allows readers to leave their own comments and reactions to a post.
• Archives: Links to older entires.
• Links: Often a list of other bloggers but can be anything.
• Ads: Powered by MT, your host, etc.

GETTING STARTED

Familiarize yourself with MovableType:

• Locate the User Manual under Resources and print it out.

Determine what kind of blog you want:

There are various types of blogs such as journal-style, photoblogs, community style with multiple authors (e.g. a group of friends, a family, etc.), subject based blogs (e.g. books, politics, cooking, etc.), or link compilation blogs.

Reading other blogs is a great way to learn about blogging. Review some of these to help you determine what kind of blog is right for you:

• TokyoShoes - my blog
• dooce - as good as it gets
• Huffington Post - a community style blog with multiple authors

Also see the Bloggie Awards for top ranked blogs in 30 categories.

Get up to speed on HTML Basics:

If you are not familiar with HTML and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), I recommend learning some of the basics. Webmonkey offers great tutorials on web building basics, or search online for other tutorials.

PART II >>