Generation Expat

Dummies' Guide to Posting to This Site

If you're already gone through the registration process for this site and are just looking for where you go to post again, log into TypePad and click "Post."

For the rest of you, here is a step-by-step explanation how you can become a co-author to this site. This features three explanations:

• Basic Instruction for Creating an Entry
  
• Advanced Instructions: Uploading a Photo
  
• Advanced Instructions: Configuring Your Profile So All Entries Point to Your "About Me" Post

 

BASIC INSTRUCTION FOR CREATING AN ENTRY

STEP 1: DO WE KNOW YOU?

This site is designed to help two overlapping circles of friends keep in touch, those who lived in Prague and/or Budapest during the early 1990s, and specifically those who were within the circles of friends of folks working at Prognosis or Budapest Week newspapers. If that does not describe you, then you probably will not be invited to be an author for this site.

STEP 2: RICK MUST SEND YOU AN EMAIL WITH A SPECIAL LINK

You need to receive this email
in order to post to the site.
Click to enlarge

Rick Bruner set up this site using a service call TypePad. In order to write to the site (aka "to post" to the site), Rick will need to send you an email from TypePad with a special link. You'll know it's the right email if the From line is "[email protected]" and the Subject Line is "Invitation to my TypePad Weblog." Write to Rick and he will be happy to send you such an invite.

STEP 3: REGISTER FOR TYPEPAD

Register on TypePad for free.
Click to enlarge

Open the email and click on the link. You will land on a page on TypePad's site. If you've never before registered at TypePad, look for the box on the right bordered in green that says "Don't have a TypePad account?" and click the button that says "Register for Free."

Fill out this form.
Click to enlarge

Next, you'll have to fill out a short form. Basically, you just need to pick a user name and password. Click the green bar "Review your registration" at the bottom of the page to advance.

You must then accept the invite
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TypePad is quite pedantic, and you must explicitly accept the invitation to sign up with yet one more screen. After that, you're signed up and won't have to go through this stuff again.

STEP 4: YOU'RE NOW READY TO POST TO THE SITE

This is what you first see on logging in
Click to enlarge

At first glance, there are so many options within TypePad, it can be a bit confusing. The first page you land on when you log in shows you what weblogs you have access to (unless you use TypePad for other sites, Generation Expat will be your only option). You can click on "Generation Expat" on the left-hand side of the page for a page with more detailed options about the weblog, or you can simply click "Create a Post" on the right under "Shortcuts" to skip straight to the authoring interface.

This is the more detailed view of
weblog optionsClick to enlarge

If you chose to see the more detailed page, you can see all the most recent posts, choose to list all posts, edit your posts (you can see the titles of other people's, but you can only edit your own) and other stuff. This page is most useful if for some reason you want to go back an edit one of your earlier posts. Otherwise, you'll want to click "Create a Post" on the right side or the "Post" tab near the top in order to get to the authoring window.

This is the main authoring window
Click to enlarge

This is the main window for creating and editing posts to the site. It's pretty straight forward. You should assign a title to the post. You can then choose an archive category for the post from a drop-down list. You can also assign multiple categories, if appropriate (look for the "Assign Multiple Categories" option in that list). The big field is for your text.

If you want to make certain phrases bold, italic or underlined, highlight that phrase then click the little round buttons just above the main text field.

Also, to create a hyperlink (those blue phrases that click you through to another web page), highlight the phrase you want to make a hyperlink, then click the "Link" button above the text field and enter the URL you want to link to into the box that pops up.

When you are ready to post the entry to the GenerationExpat.com site, simply click the "Save" buttom at the bottom of the page. Then go check GenerationExpat.com. The new entry should appear in a few seconds. (You will have to refresh the page on GenerationExpat.com in order to see the new entry.) If you want to save the post as a draft and then come back and finish it later (a good idea if you're writing a long post, to make sure you don't lose any work in case the computer crashes, or whatever), to the left of the "Save" button change the "Post Status" from "Publish Now" to "Draft."

That's it! The other things discussed below are extra credit. This completes the basic lesson! Now go forth and post like crazy!

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ADVANCED INSTRUCTIONS: UPLOADING (AND FORMATTING) A PHOTO

Okay, brave soul, here's how you upload a photo to the site. Step 0 is that you should already have a digitalized photo of yourself somewhere on your hard drive. Ideally, the dimensions of that photo should be not wider (horizontally) than about 350 pixels. If it is and you don't have a photo editing tool, don't worry about it, I'll correct it myself later. Or, if this is all a bit much for you, just email me the photo, and I'll upload it myself, in which case you can skip all of the below.

The truly brave among you can continue reading to the bottom of this where I have special instructions on formatting the photos neatly, but that involves a tiny bit of actual HTML, so I'm assuming 90% of you won't want to bother with that.

STEP 1: SELECT 'UPLOAD FILE' FROM EDITING SCREEN

Here is where the "Upload File" link is
located. Click to enlarge.

From the main authoring window in TypePad, find and click the "Upload File" link. It is located above the "Title" field, to the right of the "New Post" link. See the screen shot here for the exact location of the link.

STEP 2: FIND THE FILE ON YOUR HARD DRIVE

Using the pop-up window,
find the photo on your hard drive
Click to enlarge.

Once you click on "Upload File," a small pop-up window will appear. The first thing you do with this is click the button "Browse" to locate the photo file on your hard drive to upload to TypePad. Do so.

There is also a field here that says "Upload Into: Folder Name (Optional)." Ignore that.

When you have selected the file on your hard drive, click "Upload File" to advance to the next screen.

STEP 3: COPY AND INSERT THE HTML

Select "Show me the HTML
and "Embedded Image"
Click to enlarge.

Okay, deep breaths. For all of you phobic of technology, this is where it starts to look slightly scary, but we can get through this, I promise. First, after you've clicked "Upload File," you'll see a screen with a few options. At the top of this screen are two choices with radio buttons (those little black round buttons). The default choice says "Create a new post for this uploaded file." That is NOT the option you want. You want to click the other button that says "Show me the HTML."

Below that is something about "Image Thumbnail." Ignore that. Leave the box unchecked.

At the bottom is a choice of two buttons. Select the one on the right, "Embedded Image."

Copy the HTML code.
Click to enlarge.

Now, if you correct chose the "Show me the HTML" button on the previous screen, you should at this point see HTML code gobbledigook here. Copy that code into your clipboard and close the small window.

Paste the HTML code into the text field.
Click to enlarge.

Finally, paste that HTML code into the top of your text window in TypePad. Make a blank line and start typing your text for your entry below that.

Easy as that!

Okay, normal human beings should stop reading at this point, but if you're a real apple-polisher and want to format the image neatly so that text runs around the sides of it, I've set up [warning, here comes geek talk] a special CSS class in the style sheets to let you do this. What you need to do is put the following around either side of the <img> tag:

<div class="imageleft">
<img src="...">
</div>

If, God help you, you want to get really fancy and add a caption to the image, do so like this:

<div class="imageleft"> <img src="..."> <div>Insert your caption text here</div></div>

Note that you add another <div> before the caption (inside of the other <div>), and then you close the <div> twice at the end.

If this breaks or you just don't want to be bothered with any of this, don't worry, I'll correct it for you later.

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ADVANCED INSTRUCTIONS: CONFIGURING YOUR PROFILE SO ALL ENTRIES POINT TO YOUR "ABOUT ME" POST

The point of this exercise is so that people will have some context on who you are when you post to the site. Remeber, even though you think you're a super star in our circle of friends, there were several waves of expats over the years, and moreover, this site is meant to include those from both the Budapest Week and the Prognosis groups of friends, so a little context helps.

TypePad is configured such that every post you make to the site is signed with your name, and that name in the footer of posts has a hyperlink. When properly configured in your Author Profile, that URL will point to a page you specify. Unfortunately, I (Rick) do not have sufficient admin power to go into your profile myself and do this for you. You are the only one with the privilege to access your Author Profile page. So I'm going to bug you about this till you fix it.

STEP 1: CREATE AN 'ABOUT ME' POST

It's been a long time. Everyone wants to know what you've been doing the past 10 or so years. I'm hoping everyone will eventually get around to creating a basic post with info on who you were back then and what you've been up to since. Ideally, include a photo.

STEP 2: COPY THE 'PERMALINK' FROM THAT 'ABOUT ME' POST

Copy the "permalink" for your "About Me" post.
Click to enlarge.

Go to the post you've created on GenerationExpat.com. At the bottom of every post, in the footer, there is various information with hyperlinks, including the name of the author, the category, the "comments" link, and the date of the post. The date links to the page's permanent URL address, it's so-called "permalink," in blogger speak.

Copy that permanent link to your clipboard. If you're using computer with Windows OS and Internet Explorer, you can copy a URL by positioning you mouse over the link and then click with your right mouse button and select "Copy Shortcut." (Or, you can also click on the link and then copy it from the URL field of your browser, but that's an extra step!)

STEP 3: PASTE THAT "ABOUT ME" URL INTO YOUR PROFILE PAGE

Select "Control Panel" in TypePad
Click to enlarge.

Log into TypePad and at the first screen after log-in, select the "Control Panel" tab (next to the "Weblog" tab).

Select link "Edit Your Profile"
Click to enlarge.

On the next screen, click the link in the center of the page "Edit Your Profile."

Paste this URL into the "Web Address" field
Click to enlarge.

On this page, you can opt to fill out lots of these fields, or not, but the key one for this exercise is the one labeled "Web Address (URL)." Paste into that field the URL for your "About Me" page that you've copied into your clipboard. Then scroll to the bottom of this page and save the update.

Check the site homepage to
see if your address is updated
Click to enlarge.

If you go back to the GenerationExpat home page (or to any page with one of your posts, anyway) and refresh the page, you should now see that your name in the footer of the post links to your "About Me" post.

In which case, you're done. And I'm done with these instructions!

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