cKent BusWeb Tips

Applying Themes to your Tumblr blog.

This is the third article which started with How to create your first ever blog from scratch in 10 minutes.

Each article takes about 10 minutes to read and work through the exercises in it. Each article takes your published on-line blog a little bit further.

In this article we are going to explore the tumblr. themes. This is a vast collection of different designs which you can apply to your blog. Some are free some are paid for and it is easy to browse them.

You can see the theme which I have chosen for this blog. Scroll the bottom of the page and you will see it is Brutal Simplicity by Kevin Burg.

Exercise 1: Browse Themes

This pre-supposes you have followed the earlier excercises or, if not, you can log on to your tumblr. account.

• Go to dashboard
• Click “Explore tumblr.” (on right of dashboard screen)
• Scroll to bottom of page and press Themes
• Have a browse through the Featured, Premium, Recent and Popular Tags.

Exercise 2: Find Brutal Simplicity.

I cannot find a way of searching tumblr. specifically for a named theme.  Their search seem a law unto itself. There are two ways you can find Brutal Simplicity (The theme this blog uses).

• Explore themes under the Featured tab. Scroll down and find it.
• in Google enter:- “Brutal Simplicity” site:www.tumblr.com

You should see at or near the top of the results “www.tumblr.com/theme/13342”

Exercise 3:  Apply a them to your new blog.

In the previouse article Your first step after creting your new blog, we finished up with a blog which looked like this:

We shall now change it to a new theme. We will chose Brutal Simplicity.

• Go to your  dashboard
• click on your blog
• Choose Customise appearance
• Click “Theme” which defaults to “All Themes”
• Where you clicked themes, move from “All Themes” by clicking the drop down box and choosing “Free Themes”
• Scroll down the list of themes. Each time you click on one, your are shown a preview of how your blog will look.
• For this exercise, I am going to choose Brutal simpliciyt but you can choose whatever appeals to you. 
• When the one you want has been clicked so it is being demontrated to you, select it by clicking the USE button (illustrated above)
• At next page, in same place as the USE button click SAVE  then CLOSE.
• You are now returned to you Dashboard. Click you blog’s admin link 
  
• then open your blog’s public view
• And that’s it! You should now be able to revel in all the glory of your new theme. Something like this:

That wraps up this article. My next article will introduce posting images but as a post in their own right or embedded in the text as these ones in this article have been.

This follows on from my post How to create your first ever blog from scratch.

This post assumes you have created your brand new tumblr. blog refered to in that article.

In this post I will take you through 3 Exercises. The whole thing should take about 10 minutes.

• Exercise 1: Familiarise yourself with skipping between your Dashboard view and your public Blog view.
• Exercise 2: Create a 2nd Post to add to your 1st post.
• Exercise 3: Create a more meaningful title for you blog than “Untitled”!

For illustration purposes, I set up another brand new blog, annkent.tumblr.com. Then, as I carried out the tasks I am going to get you to do now, I captured images of its development and put them in this post.

I have several email addresses and simply used an alternative email address to set up the Ann Kent blog. So now I can log either onto Anne Kent or the cKentBusWeb tips blog.

So let’s get on with it.

Exercise 1: Familiarise yourself with Dashboard/Blog

What should your brand new blog look like when you log onto it after having just created it? Like this:

 When you log onto your brand new blog we created earlier tumblr takes you to your dashboard. The address will be shown in your browser as  www.tumblr.com/dashboard  .

In the illustration below, I have circled in red the links to your Dashboard, the private maintenainance part of of your blog (untitled), and the Public published view of your blog (Open (untitled)).

Note the following about the illustration above:

• The selected on is white.
  

Let us now select (Untitled) by clicking on it.  Here is what you should now see

Note the following:

• Untitled is now white (Selected)
• Your first post “Ann Kent has arrived in the world of Blog” is at the top
• The green Posts strip denotes this blog has only 1 post
• this is NOT what the public will see

To go to the public view, click the “Open Untitled” box to the right of the Video icon.

Note the following

• This is what the public will see
• the only exception is that only you can see your Customize and Dashboard icons top right.
• (not illustrated) the url of this public blog will be something like annkent.tumlr.com as shown in your brower’s address bar.

Summary: Get used to clicking between the Dashboard, the Maintenance part of yuor blog and the Public view of you blog.

Exercise 2: Create a new post

• Click the dashboard icon (top right) “Dashboard should go white.
• Click the Text Icon (A New Post window should display)
• In the Title write “My Second Post”
• In the Post write “Just because I can”
• Press the icon “Create Post ” (bottom left of page)

Now you should see both posts and the green strip post counter displaying “Posts 2”.

Exercise 3: change your blog title from “untitled” to something like “Ann Kent’s Blog”

• In dashboard
• click the cogwheel icon (top right)
• In the new preferences form click the “Customize your blog” button (top right)
• In the left hand column note the second box down has:- Title, Description
• Overwrite title’s “untitled” with something like Ann Kent’s Blog
• In description box write something like “Welcome: this is all about …” and bear in mind the description should get to the point in very few words as it shows in a small window. (you can easily edit/change it later by repeating this  excercise)
• Click the green save button (top right of left column)
• click grey close button (to its right)

This is what my Ann Kent’ blog looked like a that stage.

Here it is in close up:

Note:

• “untitled” now shows as “Anne Kent’s blog”
• My second post has replaced the 1st post at the top, pushing down the older post.

Get used to clicking between the Dashboard view and the Blog view as described earlier in this post. Remember your readers see the Blog view. On you see the Dashboard view.

My next bost about blogging will discuss how to choose an attractive style for your blog.

This takes you through through the process of starting from scratch in creating a brand new blog site free of charge.

My very first attempt took me ages because the site did not make clear what to expect and I got far too worried about getting it wrong.

This article is designed to show you how quick and easy it is and to take away the pain which I suffered. Bear in mind that this “hello world” example is a valid first step whcih will set you up with a real blog. I shall post other articles to take you on from that point. If you think you have made a mistake, do not worry, you can simply delete the whole thing as though it never existed or you can ammend and correct any part of it.

The are several free services offering web hosting. For this example I am going to use the highly acclaimed tumblr.com.   and your url will end up as www.{your choice of name}.tumblr.com.

Before you start, work out:

• the name which will appear as your url. For example if you choose “JohnSmith”, then the your blog’s url will end up being www·johnsmith·tumblr·com. (Unless  that is taken, so be prepared with an alternative distinctive name).
• What you wish your logon password to be.
• what email address you wish to use for tumblr to verify who you are etc.

Let us pretend you are going to use JohnSmith for your url and your password is abracadabra and your email address is john@jsproducts.com

Ready? Lets go:-

• With your web brower, visit www.tumblr.com
• It will instantly offer you the chance to create a blog with the entry form up and ready for you to fill in.
• In the email box enter your equivalent of  john@jsproducts.com
• In the password box enter your equivalent of abracadabra
• In the url type your equivalent of JohnSmith (the form will autocomple with.tumblr.com)
• Click the START POSTING button - you will be shown a new window which is  you have to enter a security code after which your “Dashboard” is shown.
• Click the Icon labelled Text
• In the Title write “John Smith has arrived in the world of Blog”
• In the message post write “Hello world. This is my first ever blog. Wow!” or something less breathless of that suits your style.
• Scroll down til you see “Create Post” and “Preview” buttons.
• Press Preview. This will open up a new window or a new tab according to your browser. Note, but dont make any changes. Close the preview window and return to the Tumblr Edit Text Post Window.
• Make any changes if you wish then click the Create Post button.
• Exit tumblr. Job Done. The End. 

Now visit your new blog. In the example above we used John Smith so to visit it enter http://johnsmith.tumblr.com

If you do it from the same computer which created it,  then you will not automatically see what the public will see, you will see your behind-the-scenes Dashboard. Alternate between dashboard and public view by clicking either “Dashboard” or “Untitled” at the top of your screen. When “Untitled is highligted” , underneath it is an icon called “Open Untitled”. Click it. There is your blog.

So that wasn’t too bad was it? it doesn’t look very pretty, there is a photoholder with no photos, it has a control panel with various buttons that you might not know what to do with but Hey! all that can easily be sorted out. The main thing is your blog exists now in the public domain  and you can revisit it and change it to your liking in small steps at a time. Remember, you can also completely delete everything and start afresh at any time.

I shall put up  other posts  in the not too distant future, each one being another 10 minute lesson. The next lesson is YOUR FIRST STEP AFTER CREATING YOUR NEW BLOG 

If you cannot wait for my lessons, and have boundless energy, then just continue finding your way around Tumblr as I did. The world is now your Oyster.

 Microsoft Office 2007.

Imagine that you have 500 contacts, and you wish to flag 100 of them as “Friends” for your Christmas card list. This is how to do it.

• List all your contacts in an easy to read format. View>Current View>Outlook data files.
• Create a category “Frn” for Friend. In the Column Categories>Right click>(chose a named colour)Right click>Rename it from e.g. “Blue Category” to “frn”.
• Work down  your list and for each Friend CTRL-CLICK (to build up your 100 selections. )
• When completed, RIGHT-CLICK in the category column and choose your new  “Frn” category. Each selected contact will recieve the “Frn” coloured icon.
• To see only those contacts marked “Frn”:- View> current view> Customise Current View> Filter> More Choices> click Categories..>TICK the box next to “Frn”
• OK

Its is easy to forget you have filtered out all but your friends. (There is a “(filter applied)” written unobtrusively by the search box at the top of the window). To remove the filter:-

• View> current view> Customize current view> (Last box) “Reset Current View”

We are now in the Bed and Breakfast business! I have just created www.demontaltwood.co.uk to promote it.

We live in beatuifull countryside on the edge of the world heritage city of Bath UK.  You can book online.

Come and visit us - you can be sure of a warm welcome.

Welcome to my cKent BusWeb Tips blog.

My name is Charles Kent. I run several web sites. I have spent hundreds of hours in learning how to build them and more recently having been researching ideas on  how to promote them.

Currently (October 2010) they receive between 100 to 3000 visits per site per month and so have plenty of room for improvement. My mission is to dramatically increase those numbers by practising what I have been learning about, and to tell you how I go about it.

I am obsessive about taking notes and in the course of the last couple of years have written hundreds of pages concerning PHP, MySql, Html, Social Media, Search Engine Optimisation, Email shots, Affiliation, Blogging, Photography, Graphics etc etc.

So often I have spent hours on trying to do something for the first time where it would have taken a just a few minutes if only I had found the right article telling me how to do it.

I am amazed at how much really useful information is freely available on the Internet. There is a wonderful spirit out there in which people share their valuable knowledge so that others may benefit from it. I have helped myself to a lot of this knowledge and I am now doing my bit by putting something back for others to share.

It is my intention to sift through those notes and  post clear articles on various specific subjects which others might find helpful.

It might interest you to know that my  sites which I will be working on are:

• DeMontaltWood.co.uk our Bed and Breakfast in Bath, England.
• www.gophones.co.uk Online shopping site for Kentel Telehone Warehouse
• www.nikondata.com Probably worlds most comprehensive list of Nikon lenses
• www.charleskent.tumblr.com this blog.

Watch this space!