2 New Plugins, embed Youtube videos on your blog
embed Youtube videos on your blog
Standards compliant FLV embedding in your blog posts using SWFObject by Geoff and FLV Player by Jeroen. Supports Video Sitemap generation.
Ad your own videos to your blog
XVE is a WordPress plug-in which embeds the videos in the right way, the XHTML way. The plug-in is self documented, so please check Options/Settings » XVE for configuration details and usage information.
Getting Started
Some of you may have been struggling to get your blogs going. I will explain some of the things you need to do very briefly, hopefully this helps.
First things first.
You might have noticed the buddy list on the site. This is a social networking site that you may use to communicate to other users on the site. You can basically request friendships with the other users, and then message them or join a group with them.
The reason we added this to the isay.co.za website, is so that people with similar interests can communicate and get to know each other. Please don’t get the buddy list confused with Blogging. I will chat more about the buddy list in later emails. For now let’s blog.
YOUR BLOG – Is like having your very own personal website. You may use and abuse it in any way you wish. But first you have to log in.
You would have received an e-mail when you signed up, saying that your blog has been set up, and you may now log in. A good idea is to open your blog first, that will be –
http://yourblog.isay.co.za in your web browser. We recommend using Mozilla Firefox, But Internet explorer also works well.
Next, you open a new tab or a new internet explorer window and retype your blog URL into the address bar, but this time add /wp-admin at the end. So it would look like this.
http://yourblog.isay.co.za/wp-admin (PS, remember to replace yourblog, with the blog name you selected.) Please use the username and password that you received in your e-mail inbox.
Okay, you have reached your “Dashboard” This is like the control centre for your blog.
Some of the things you might notice here are
· Write · Manage · Design · Comments
Lets have a quick look at the menu’s
Write, allows you to create new posts and pages. This is where you will spend most of your time, once your blog is set UP. Post will add the latest post at the very top of your blog page. Pages will create new links on your blog page. So let’s say, posts are alive, and will add the latest posts to the top of your blog, and pages remains static, they will add links to your blog to visit those pages.
Manage: This is where you can go to make changes to your posts and pages you already created.
Design: You would probably start with this one. We have 2 options here. Themes and widgets.
Themes, will change the way your blog appears to readers. You may select from many themes by simply clicking on the theme you like and then clicking the “activate theme” link in the top right hand corner.
Widgets: This will add all kinds of cool stuff to your sidebar; you may select anything from Text (where you can type a simple message or add some HTML code) to colander. Please remember to save changes whenever you change anything on your widgets side.
Some of the widgets you may want to use are:
Calendar: Adds calendar function to show your blog dates
Text: adds text or html code
Categories: Gives users quick access to your blog categories
Pages: links to the pages you created
Please note that some themes may have more than one sidebar that you can populate.
So last but not least.
Comments: This is where you will choose to approve or delete user comments. Some comments contain only a bunch of links to other sites, this mean that they have no interest in your article and they just want to use your blog as a free marketing tool. You can delete those. Others may be legitimate comments from your readers. You may accept those.
Please let me know if you need any more information. I will send another e-mail next week telling you how to use plugins, and do some other cool stuff with your blog.
To contact us: admin@isay.co.za
Or use the Forum for all your Q & A’s http://isay.co.za/bbpress/
Thanks and happy blogging. (PS, We have 149 blogs and 111 users and are in week 3 of the existence of www.isay.co.za – well done!!!)
If you no longer wish to receive e-mails from us, please let us know. admin@isay.co.za
Available Plugins for your blog
About Me widget – Adds an “About Me” widget to your sidebar.
Add to Any – Share/Save/Bookmark Button – Helps readers share, save, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service.
AdSense Manager - Control and arrange your AdSense & Referral blocks on your Wordpress blog. With Widget and inline post support, configurable colours.
Amatomu.com counter widget – Adds Amatomu stats counting to your blog
cforms – cformsII offers unparalleled flexibility in deploying contact forms across your blog. Features include: comprehensive SPAM protection, Ajax support, Backup & Restore, Multi-Recipients, Role Manager support, Database tracking and many more.
Sitewide Featured User Widget - Feature recent post(s) by any user in the community in your sidebar. Several options in the widget control panel.
WordPress.com Stats – Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks. Requires a WordPress.com API key.
Akismet – Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” To show off your Akismet stats just put <?php akismet_counter(); ?> in your template.
Skype Online Status – Add multiple, highly customizable and accessible Skype buttons to post/page content (quick-tags), sidebar (unlimited number of widgets) or anywhere else (template code). Find documentation and advanced configuration options on the Skype Online Status Settings page or just go straight to your Widgets page and Skype away
Stray Random Quotes – Displays random quotes on your blog. Easy to custom and manage.
WP Wall – “Wall” widget that appears in your blog’s side bar. Readers can add a quick comment about the blog as a whole, and the comment will appear in the sidebar immediately, without reloading the page.
To activate any of these plugins, simply click the “pluggin” link on your dashboard. Most of these plugins will create a new “widget”, so go to “Design” – “Widget” to add to your sidebar
Visit Counter
To get an accurate count of the amount of visitors reading your blog each day, you need to add some kind of counter to your blog. A good way to achieve this is to add the www.satopblogs.co.za counter, since it will show the the amount of visitors to your blog, and an average amount of visitors. When you visit the www.satopblogs.co.za, you will get even more information about your blog. When you click on the stats menu you will see a daily, weekly and monthly visit total. The www.satopblogs.co.za stats also includes your best day, unique in and unique out.
To get this counter on your blog, please follow the following procedure.
Visit www.satopblogs.co.za, and click the “Join” Menu
Please note that when entering your information, your blog URL is http://yourblog.isay.co.za
If you have not created a banner for your blog, you can leave the banner URL field empty, Satopblogs.co.za will then use the default “Ranked by sdatopblogs” banner.
Once you click the “Submit button” You will receive a “HTML code” in your email inbox”
Adding the code to your blog.
To add he code to your blog, log into your blog dashboard (example: http://yourblog.isay.co.za/wp-admin
with your user name and password. Once logged in click the “design” Menu, and select “Widgets”
On the left hand side of your dashboard, click “Add” on a “Text Widget”
Text widgets can be used for “Arbitrary text or HTML”
On the right hand side of your dashboard, click “edit” on your text widget
Copy the code into the text window.
Click the change button, and select “Save Changes” at the bottom.
That’s it. Your counter will display the number of unique visitors to your blog, along with an average. It will also rank your blog according to visitors each day.
Happy blogging.
Site Stats
We launced this site isay.co.za on 05 Jan 2009.
Today marks the two week anniversary, We now have 89 Blogs, and 60 Users.
Well done guys, this is great. This site isay.co.za is growing at an extraordinary rate.
and we have you to thank for it. Keep up the good work. And keep those blog posts coming.
Get a free flag counter for your blog
Get your very own flag counter with just one line of HTML code. Flag counters are fast, fun, reliable, and best of all, free of charge!
very time a visitor from a new country visits your page, a new flag will be added to your counter. The total number of visitors to your site from each country will be shown next to the flag, and you can click the counter to view all sorts of useful information.
You can customize your new flag counter and once you get the code, you simply add it to a text widget in your side panel.
Example:
Rate our banner
Hi, this is one of our banner ideas. Please tell us what you think.
Wil jy blog?
Om ‘n blog te skryf is om jou gedagtes en kennis te deel met ander mense wat dieselfde idees of belangstelling as jy het, dis ‘n goeie manier om met ander te deel wat jy weet, en jou standpunt te maak. ‘n Blog is soos ‘n dag boek met die onderwerp van jou keuse.
Blogs is die mees geleeste artikels op die internet, en duisende nuwe blogs word daagliks geskep. Dit plaas jou as blogger in die skoene van ‘n joernalis, en laat jou toe om inligting aan mense deur te gee wat ander geniet om te lees of selfs kan leer van.
Wie moet ‘n blog bou, wel my opinie is elke persoon het ‘n storie om te vertel, en ‘n opinie om te lig, die feit dat jy geen uitgewer nodig het, of gemonitor word oor wat jy skryf nie, maak dit die mees openbare manier van kommunikasie. Die beste is dat jy in beheer is van wat jou lesers sien, en jy kry terugvoer deur ‘n “comment” sisteem waar jy terugvoer kry oor wat jou lesers dink van jou artikel. Blogs bestaan uit “posts” en “pages” en gee aan jou totale vryheid oor die onderwerpe, katagorie en die manier waarop die inligting vertoon.
As jy teen die tyd, gereed is om jou eie blog te bou, gaan gerus www.isay.co.za en registreer jou blog. Dit is ‘n baie maklike registrasie, en vat slegs 3 minute. As jy nog nie heeltemal oortuig is nie. Lees verder.
So, hier is jy nou en jy tik laat die rook uit jou keyboard uitkom, wat kry jy daarvoor. Wel behalwe dat jy jou voetspore op die net los vir almal om na te kyk kan jy ook betaal word om dit te doen. Daar is baie maniere om op jou blog namens ander maatskapye te adverteer, en per kliek of lydraad betaling te ontvang. Gaan kyk gerus na www.isay.co.za vir meer inligting.
En as dit jou nie oorreed het om jou eie blog te bou nie, dan moet jy maar jou vriende vertel van die idée en hulle verwys na die isay.co.za web blad.
Sterkte en geniet jou blog ondervinding.
New Plugin
“Wall” widget that appears in your blog’s side bar. Readers can add a quick comment about the blog as a whole, and the comment will appear in the sidebar immediately (without reloading the page)
New things
Hi, Isay.co.za Bloggers
We have done some work on the isay.co.za Website, and have some very exiting stuff to show you.
Our pride and joy, is the new isay.co.za buddy list, here you can see what everyone is Blogging about.
It’s a social network type of service, an will allow you to do some very cool things. Like upload a pic
of your self, and meet some new bloggers friends. check it out http://buddylist.isay.co.za
Next, we have a live chat, This is where we will chat about anything. Join us http://isay.co.za/isaychat/
And finally we set up the top blog list, http://isay.co.za/topblog/
And come on guy’s you need to start blogging, the site depends on you….
Enjoy your week
gerritd