The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Blogging - For the Bookshelf Major Keary |
The flow of literature on blogging indicates there is a big following in North America where an interesting development is that business (generally small) has begun to embrace Weblogs, and at the enterprise level blogging is being used for internal communications.
If you would like to know more about the subject and how to set up a Weblog, here are two good titles that between them cover a range of tools for setting up and maintaining a Weblog.
Like a normal Web page, the process can be very simple or complex. It depends on what one wants to achieve, and how much time and effort one is prepared to invest. Apart from the technical side of creating Weblogs, the medium has a social face.
We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs
This book was written by three authors, each of whom has an association with Blogger, the most popular Weblog application. It is recommended to those readers who have an interest in the social impact of Weblogs and the medium's use as a community communication 'tool'. That is not to suggest it is in anyway deficient on technical matters; in fact it deals with the technology very well and discusses a range of available software and services. In particular there is a comprehensive discussion of content management systems (CMS), which are usually associated with high-end applications; CMS automates the process of storing, manipulating, and publishing content.
The book is in parts: an introduction; Blog elements; and advanced blogging. The introductory part defines and outlines the origins of Weblogs, and contains a tutorial, Starting Your First Weblog. It then looks at social aspects of blogging under headings such as, why people read blogs, why people blog, a community of bloggers, and multi-author Blogs. There is also a brief description of business Blogs.
The second part deals with the technical side of Weblogs, beginning with HTML basics and moving on to topics such as retrieving information from Weblogs, Weblog publishing systems, and content management systems. Four Weblog tools are described (Blogger, LiveJournal, Movable Type, and Radio Userland). Practical tutorials are included.
The third part is about advanced topics, such as comment systems, Web site statistics, mailing lists, using Blogs in business, and the use of Weblogs for publicity campaigns.
Useful information is contained in two appendices and there is a glossary. A feature worth noting is the detailed explanations of how to migrate a Weblog to a new site host, and between applications.
A well written, comprehensive guide for novices through to users with experience in Web technologies and who want to learn about Weblogs.
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Paul Bausch, Matthew Haughey, and Meg Hourihan: We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs ISBN 0-7645-4926-6 Published by Wiley, 313 pp., RRP $56.95 incl. GST |
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Blog On
Todd Stauffer is a well-established author of computer books and contributor to
technical magazines. His book, Blog On: The Essential Guide to Building
Dynamic Weblogs is presented in a pleasing style, both in its writing and
typographical design.
The focus is on doing rather than "weblogging history, theory, or its
social significance"; the book is not quite a tutorial, but uses a how-to
approach with plenty of example code, side notes, and screen shots. Along the
way it compares a number of Weblog packages and explains how they are installed
and used. In particular, the books discusses server-side Weblog-management
systems with explanations of the difference between hosted and server-side
Weblogs.
Four hosted Weblog-management systems described (Blogger, Radio Userland,
LiveJournal, and Manila), the first two in some detail, and the other
two briefly. Three server-side options are described (Greymatter, Movable
Type, and pMachine), each of which has its own chapter.
There are add-ons that can be used to enhance a Weblog; a chapter
describes some of these, including setting up a reply e-mail account, adding and
managing a mailing list, and third-party editing tools.
A practical text that goes straight to the business of choosing, installing, and
using suitable software, and managing and creating a Weblog. The focus is on
dynamic Weblogs. It is especially recommended to those who want information that
will help choose between hosted and server-side solutions. An appendix contains
useful listings of Weblog resources.
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Todd Stauffer: Blog On: The Essential Guide to Building Dynamic Weblogs ISBN 0-07-222712-5 Published by Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 361 pp., RRP $54.95 incl. GST. |
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Reprinted from the August 2003 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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