Tell it like it is

Make your voice heard on a blog of your own. Every member’s page on roguecurrent.com comes equipped with a blog, the perfect place to share your writing.

While comments on walls connect you with others and discussion forums are a place to share common interests in groups, a blog is all about you and whatever you want to write. Whether your interest is in politics or poetry or just keeping a journal, this is a place you can do it.

To get started, go to your profile page and locate the “My Blog” section in the middle column and click the “Add a Blog Post” link.

Each post has place for a title and a text box for the entry. All you have to do is start typing and your wit and wisdom will soon be shared with the world.

But you don’t have to just share words of wisdom; You can add text, links, images, and files to your post using the toolbar at the top of the text entry box. That toolbar also enables you to easily make the type bold, italic, underlined or crossed out.

To change the style of the type, highlight the text you want to appear in the selected style, then click the button that shows a letter in that style. For example, to italicize a word or sentence, highlight the text, then click the italic “I” in the toolbar.

But wait, you might say, I don’t see anything in italics. I see a jumble of pointy brackets and slashes and letters.

It turns out that our friendly little text box is actually an HTML editor and it speaks in code. If you are a code monkey who knows that language, you can go nuts telling the machine what you want it to do. But if you don’t do HTML, the software should do it for you.

For example, to add a link, type in the text you want to be the active link — the actual Web address or a descriptive phrase. Highlight it and click the “Add Hyperlink” button, which looks like a chain link. Then paste the full address into the box that pops up. The software will insert a string of code to make the link clickable.

Some browsers or security programs, however, will block that magic. You might get a message about the program trying to access a script that has been blocked. You usually can temporarily override that with a click or can even choose to always trust roguecurrent.com. (We appreciate your trust.)

The button that looks like a camera will help you insert a photo or graphic into your blog post, and the button that looks like a sheet of paper will help you upload a file. (Leave a comment on this post if you think a separate lesson on those functions is warranted, and we will help you out.)

Inserting a few links and dressing up some passages in various text styles adds a lot of gobbledygook, I mean, HTML, to your post. See through all of that to what your post is really going to look like for readers by clicking the “Preview” button on the bottom of the page.

If it looks good, you can publish with just one more click from that preview page. Or you can click back to the composing screen via the “Back” button in the yellow preview screen to make any changes or corrections your eagle-eyed editing has spotted.

You can also add keywords in the “Tags” field to make your blog easier to find and set the publishing time and date. The last few questions on this screen let you choose who can see and comment on your blog post.

When you are finished, click “Publish Post,” and, just like that, you are a published writer.