How to set up a blog

Some of you have expressed bewilderment, interest or indifference to this blog.

But for those who are interested in trying it out yourself - it took me all of 3 minutes to set this up. And then a bit of playing to get the photos, text and bits at the side.

If you have Google then follow this (if you have Yahoo, MSN or other system - just find the Blogging item when you are in your Account- it will be similar):

1. Set up a Google account - you may already have one or click here to set one up
   
2. Once in your Account, find the list of Google products and add Blogger to your products.
3. Then just follow the instructions - 4 easy steps:-

• Create a Blog
• Give it a name (eg Graham and Cathy in New Zealand) you can edit anything you put here or elsewhere at any time by clicking on "Edit". You will get a URL (the thing that says www.?????) with your personal details - this is what you give out to people
  
• Choose a template - this is why some of you think it took me ages to set up - but you just choose a layout that you like and cheat.
• Create your first Post - type in a Title and some text and you can either "Publish" (which everyone can see) or "Save" and it creates a draft Post. You can publish this whenever you want. You can see a list of all your posts at any time when you go to Edit Posts - and surprise, surprise, you can edit any of them.
  

As you type up the new Post you will see a list of things at the top that you can do - eg Bold, Italics, colours, Add an image (click that and you can choose a photo to insert), Create a link etc

And there you have a blog.

I then just played around with the layout tab at the top of the page until I got what I wanted down the side panel.