8.4 iBlog Overview

When you first launch iBlog, and after you've read through its license agreement, you'll notice that its window (shown in Figure 8-2) has a fairly complex interface.

Figure 8-2. iBlog's interface.

Most of iBlog's basic functions can be accessed from the row of buttons along the bottom of the window. The window itself has four main areas for creating and managing your blog entries.

For a complete rundown of iBlog's menu items and keyboard shortcuts, see Appendix A.

8.4.1 Registering iBlog

Like most third-party software (i.e., software not provided or sold by Apple), iBlog is shareware. That means that you can use iBlog for up to 15 days before you will need to pay for a license to use the software all of the time.

When you register your copy of iBlog, you're agreeing to the license terms, and most importantly, agreeing to fork over the $19.95 registration fee for two seats (which means you can legally install iBlog on no more than two Macs). But once you have registered iBlog and have that license key in-hand, you can use iBlog beyond the 15-day limit and publish a blog to your .Mac HomePage.

After your payment has been received, Lifli Software will send you an email containing the license key. To register your copy of iBlog, go to the iBlog menu (the Application menu) and select Register. A window similar to the one shown in Figure 8-3 appears.

Figure 8-3. The Register iBlog window.

To register your copy, enter the email address that Lifli sent the email to, and then enter the License Key from the email in the appropriate field. With both of those fields complete, click on the Register button.

You must be connected to the Internet to register your copy of iBlog. The reason is because iBlog sends the information you enter in those fields to Lifli's servers. If everything checks out just fine, you're free to use iBlog to your heart's content. (Get it? Content?)

Once you've registered your copy of iBlog, the next thing you'll need to do is configure its preferences.

8.4.2 iBlog's Preferences

iBlog works in mysterious ways. Well, not really, but you will need to tweak iBlog's preferences before you can start your life as a blogger.

To open iBlog's Preferences window, select iBlog Preferences ( -;). As you can see from Figure 8-4, there are four different "panes" to iBlog's preferences, each of which can be accessed by clicking on its icon in the toolbar. iBlog's preference panes are described in the following sections.

8.4.2.1 General

The General pane, shown in Figure 8-4, is where most of the action happens for iBlog.

Figure 8-4. iBlog's General preferences pane controls most of iBlog's settings.

The General preferences pane is split into the following three sections that let you specify some of the basic elements of your blog:

Homepage

The Homepage section lets you specify a name for the name that will appear as the Banner for your blog. By default, this is set to My Blog, but you can change that to anything you'd like, such as Chuck's Blog.

Also in this section are color selectors, which let you specify the Background and Text Color for your blog's homepage. By default, the Background color is set to a burgundy color, and the Text Color is set to black. To change the colors, simply click on the colored box to open the Color palette, shown in Figure 8-5.

Figure 8-5. Use the color palette to select a different color for either the Background or the Text Color.

When you've selected the color you want, simply close the Colors window, and the color you've chosen appears in the appropriate box in the Homepage section.

Entry Abstract

Entry Body

These two sections allow you to specify the fonts and font sizes for the blog entries. By default, the Font is set to Helvetica and the Size is set to 12 (points) for both. Remember, this is your blog, so get creative and change things up a bit. Pick fonts and sizes that reflect your style, but keep in mind that they need to be readable.

Date Format

This menu lets you select the date format that gets added to your blog entries. Your options are mm/dd/yyyy (the default) or dd/mm/yyyy.

Following these sections are a series of items with Yes/No radio buttons, which are described in Table 8-1.

Table 8-1. iBlog's General preferences radio buttons

Item	Default	Action
Launch Web Browser After Preview	Yes	This launches the default web browser when you preview a blog entry.
Launch Web Browser After Publish	Yes	This launches the default web browser after you publish a blog entry.
Turn Off Font Styling in Preview	No	With "No" specified as the default, this means that the styles specified for the fonts will be viewable when you preview a blog entry.
Enable Continuous Spell Check	Yes	All of the blog entries will be spell checked as you enter them; leaving this set to Yes will reduce the number of typos and errors in your blog entries.
Open Hyperlinks in New Window	No	With "No" specified as the default, any hyperlinks that get clicked on from within the blog entry will open in the same window; if you want links to open in a separate window, you should change this to Yes.
Show Paragraph Formatting Toolbar	No	This turns off paragraph formatting in iBlog's toolbar.
Check for Updates at Launch	Yes	This automatically looks for updates every time iBlog is launched; by having this set to Yes, it ensures that you will be notified when there is a new release you should download.

8.4.2.2 Sounds

The Sound preferences panel, shown in Figure 8-6, allows you to have an alarm sound whenever you make a certain type of change to your blog.

Figure 8-6. iBlog's Sounds preferences pane.

If you don't want iBlog to make any sounds, you can simply uncheck all of the checkboxes next to the items listed in the Operations column.

8.4.2.3 Publish

Before you can publish a blog, you first need to specify a blog using the Publish preferences pane, shown in Figure 8-7.

Figure 8-7. iBlog's Publish preferences pane.

At the bottom of this window is the Choose Location Type pop-up menu. By default, this menu is set to .Mac (which we'll want to use), but you can also opt to publish your blog to FTP, Local (your Mac's local domain), WebDAV, or AFP. Since we want to publish the blog to your .Mac HomePage, just leave this menu set to .Mac.

To add your blog to the list of Publish Locations, click on the New Location button at the bottom of the window. A sheet slides out of the window's titlebar, as shown in Figure 8-8.

Figure 8-8. Specify the location for your blog.

Since the blogs you write will be posted to your iDisk, you will need to supply your .Mac username and password in the fields provided, as shown in Figure 8-8. For the Location Name, choose anything you'd like; for me, I've set this to Chuck's .Mac Blog, as shown.

By default, iBlog is set to save your blog entries in the / Sites/iblog directory on your iDisk. iBlog creates the iblog folder and places that within the Sites folder on your iDisk the first time you create a blog entry.

Once you've filled in all of the blanks on this sheet, click on the Save button to save the new location for your blog.

If you change your .Mac password frequently, you will also need to change its password in iBlog's Publish preference panel. To do so, just double-click on the blog location name to open the sheet, change the entry in the Password field, and then click on the Save button to save the new password.

8.4.2.4 iLife

The iLife preference panel, shown in Figure 8-9, is used for specifying the location and format for audio and image files that can be used with your blog entries.

Figure 8-9. iBlog's iLife preferences pane.

Now that you've learned what iBlog is and how to configure its preferences, the next step is to actually create your blog.