Early days; Area 52 blog (MM in IT shock!!!)

[Mystery Machine]

Being very rubbish at web related stuff I've finally decided that 2010 is time to get more savvy with online IT.

This has started with the Area 52 blog: area52blog.blogspot.com/

I've been thinkin of this for a while, but thinking>doing don't always happen with me when it comes to IT. That's all about to change.

After deciding to make a start with a blog, I saw Speedman had also recently started a blog (check it out here: speedman-campervan.blogspot.com/ ) and this was the inspiration I needed to sign up to Blogger and start sifting through the set-up options.

I need to sort a lot out (logo size, layout, permissions etc....) but please have a l'il looky, sign up and make comments. I would appreciate any feedback, suggestions for content and also any advice from experiennced bloggers out there about setting up permissions etc....

I want this to be a 'live resource' for people to keep up to date on forthcoming playdays, see details of previous playdays, contribute and help expand the whole Area 52 'thing'

In the meantime, have some shots from playdays in 09 (a mini retrospective if you like ;D)

Thank you for looking and also thanks in advance for any help in getting this blog sorted and running better.

MM

Playday 1










Playday 2












Playday 3














Playday 4

[rysz]

Looks like the permissions thing is working fine - having not used Blogger, are there different levels of permissions that you can give team members?

Rysz.

[Mystery Machine]

Not too sure - I'm still finding my feet and trying to get my head around the permissions/access stuff!

Are you able to post a comment? I'd like to make it so that only people with my permission can make comments but at the same time allow anyone to watch/follow the blog. Not sure if this can be done, or how to do it if it can be done?

As said, its a bit trial & error for a complete numpty like me. LOL.

[rysz]

Jan 2, 2010 0:04:37 GMT Mystery Machine said:

Are you able to post a comment? I'd like to make it so that only people with my permission can make comments but at the same time allow anyone to watch/follow the blog. Not sure if this can be done, or how to do it if it can be done?

Nope, team members only!

Rysz.

[Mystery Machine]

Thanks Dude, might be giving you a call tomorrow to try out some stuff with membership, posting etc..... Call it a learning curve for us both ;D

[rysz]

No worries dude!

Rysz.

[ben711200]

I have no idea how any of it works. But I am following and subscribing to this blog. Apparently. I've saved it in my favourites as well because I'll just get confused. Looking good, Bruce

[Mystery Machine]

Hopefully comments now enabled (they won't appear publicly until I have authorised them though)

I'd better start getting the content sorted now ;D

[Stiff]

I can't offer much in the way of advice as I'm still learning myself but I'll put a link on my blog. Oh and I've just done a blog on your blog ;D

[Speedman]

Great idea and cheers for the free blog advert....got 4 whole followers now ;D

The only comment I have is the colour, not keen on black backgrounds, my eyes go a bit funny when you try and read the text, other than that cool idea, regular updates is the key, also link it into your FB account and the posts you make appear in your status

[Robinxr4i]

Great stuff Bruce!

[Mystery Machine]

Thanks for the comments everyone. It's been a very stressful day working on my car so its actually nice to come in to the warm and learn some IT stuff. There's more to it than I thought!

Stiff, many thanks for giving me a blog of my blog (did I ever think I'd be saying something like that?? LOL)

I've now set up a list of blogs on the site. If there are any you think I could add or have obviously missed, please let me know?

Steve, for the time being the site will stay black I'm afraid. Sorry about that! It's part of the A52 look - although this might change when the website is finally sorted. I'm currently spending most of my time trying to work it all out. I'm not finding it that quick or easy to add photos so if any of you guys have some tips/advice, please let me know?

I'll keep adding content on a regular basis....one lesson I've learnt is to make titles that are easy to track at a later date. Cryptic titles seemed like a great idea, but in a few months when I want to find something.......

I hope it will start to look a bit more 'established' once I get more content in there. Shame there isn't a facility for photo galleries!

[Speedman]

Jan 2, 2010 19:50:59 GMT Mystery Machine said:

Steve, for the time being the site will stay black I'm afraid. Sorry about that!

No worries ;D

Jan 2, 2010 19:50:59 GMT Mystery Machine said:

but in a few months when I want to find something.......

Tags, as you write a post you can add tags, I put the year, month, type of event (classic, racing, VW etc) and anything else I think of, then when you write another post you get the option to add more and reuse the ones you have, keep it simple and you should be able to find anything you want

Jan 2, 2010 19:50:59 GMT Mystery Machine said:

Shame there isn't a facility for photo galleries!

Arrange each event into a PB album or similar, then put a link at the end of the post to get to more photos, the idea of a blog for me is to give an overview of the events I go to, too much and people don't read or look ;D

[Mystery Machine]

Thanks Steve - great tips there ;D

I'll certainly use the idea for the link in P/bucket. I just wanted to somehow give access to the photos of the previous playdays. Maybe I can dedicate some blog entries to previous 'goings on' down at the unit? (like operation Day Release) and include links to the thread back on this site.

I think I am starting to get the hang of it now....thanks for steering me in the right direction. ;D

[Speedman]

You can decide the date the post gets or was published. I did a Christmas Card post in the middle of November and setit to post it up on December 1st, I also wrote one of the rally posts a couple of days after the event and back dated it. Use the "post options" tab at the bottom of the post box