July 14, 2002
Making your first entry

Once you have an author name and password, open this site to this entry. Click MORE (read below for an explanation) so you can see this whole entry. Open a new window in your browser so you can keep this explanation open. Then type this URL into that other window:

http://www.gomaya.com/mt/mt.cgi

Or just type in gomaya - most browsers will find the site home page, and I will put a link to the login page there.

Enter name and password, and you will go to a Main Menu page, with a welcome and New Entry button. Click on New Entry and you will see an empty form waiting for you. Enter a title, and pick a category. I have put a list of one-word options there. You can be literal - a note about the solstice at Palenque under "Sky" - or more associative - a link to the discovery of a new planetary system under that same category. If you have ideas for new categories, let me know, in an email or an entry. Make it an entry, and we all can comment on it.

Then there's a box for Main Entry Text. That's whatever you want to appear on the main page. I just typed this entry in that box. Now I'm going to move to the Additional Entry Text box. That will make the word MORE appear just below this. You can click on that to see my entire entry.

Now you are looking at the Individual entry page, which includes a space for comments (by anyone in the world, folks - get used to it). Anyway, type in your additional text in the box provided, ignore the Excerpt box for now, then scroll down the page. Make sure that Post Status is Publish (some weblogs have an editor who approves entries before posting them, but I don't want to do that). Go to the bottom and hit save. It'll chew on your entry a moment and then give you one last chance to edit it. Make changes if you like (misspelling is my pet peeve but what the hell, there's no spellchecker), then hit save again. Click the View Site button and see your entry on the web. You may have to click reload on your browser to see the latest change.

Sounds a little complicated but it isn't. This is the beauty of these "blog" systems - an easy way to collaborate and publish on the web.

Posted by Dave at July 14, 2002 05:31 PM