By default, all blogs are added to the primary OSU profile.  If you would like access to this profile, you can contact Web Communications and they will be happy to help you get the ball rolling.

If you would like to start up your own profile, just do the following:

1. Go to: http://www.google.com/analytics/sign_up.html
2. If you do not yet have a Google account, you must sign up for one to use Google Analytics.  Create an account, if necessary, and then log in to the account.
3. You will be redirected to the Google Analytics starting page – click Sign Up.
4. You will be redirected to the Analytics: New Account Signup page, enter the following information:
   1. Website’s URL field
   2. Account Name field
   3. Time Zone Country or Territory field
   4. Time Zone field
5. Click Continue
6. You will then be redirected to a page where you will have to fill out the following information:
   1. Last Name field
   2. First Name field
   3. Country or Territory field
7. Click Continue
8. You will be redirected to the User Agreement page – read the terms and click the Yes check box to continue
9. Click Create New Account
10. Your Google Analytics code will be presented to you.  Look for the UA-xxxxxx-x number within the code – this is what you’ll need for the Google Analytics setting on your blog

Configuring your blogsite for Google Analytics

Once you have your Google Analytics tracking code, login to your blogsite and do the following:

1. Go to Dashboard > Settings > Google Analytics
2. Paste your Google tracking number into the Tracking Code field on the page
3. Click Save Changes

To check your stats, just log in to Google Analytics and your report will immediately show.  Google Analytics operates on a 24 hour delay, so you must wait at least one day after configuring your settings to start tracking results.

This menu block contains several different poll creation and management tools:

• Manage Polls
  • Manage your polls, view poll statistics, and view poll logs
• Add Poll
  • Add a new poll to your blogsite
• Poll Options
  • Set different options for your polls related to style, sorting, poll permissions, and poll archival
• Poll Templates
  • Change the layout and information display of your polls (for advanced users)
• Uninstall WP-Polls

To view help instructions on the WP-Polls plugin and Polls widget, just click on the following provided links:

• WP-Polls Plugin Help
• Polls Widget Help

You can also locate the specific help post in the Categories menu on this site.

Sites

This is a table view of all social bookmarking sites recognized by the Sociable plugin.  The list is quite extensive – it currently contains 99 different site options.  Just check the boxes next to the sites of your choice.  Icons with links to these sites will then be included at the bottom of your posts.

Sprite Usage

In computer graphics, a sprite is an image or animation, typically a small two or three-dimensional one, that is  integrated into a larger scene.  For example, the little, spinning animation that shows at the top of a web page tab while your page is loading – or the spinning hourglass on a PC – are examples of sprites.

The Disable sprite usage option will turn these little animations off if they appear in an icon.

Alpha Mask

An alpha transparency mask is a semi-transparent image that is overlaid on another image – giving the base image the appearance of being disabled.  When the image is hovered on by a mouse, clicked, or otherwise brought into focus, the base image becomes brightened.  The Disable alpha mask on share toolbar? option, if checked, will remove the alpha mask from your share icons.

Tagline

The Share and Enjoy label, also known as a Tagline, can be changed to read whatever you want it to.  If you wish to change this text, just enter your desired text between the strong tags in the provided field.

Position

The social bookmarking icons, by default, appear at the end of each blog post and may show on other types of pages as well, depending on the theme you use.  You can select where you want these particular items to show up to decrease the littering of your site with repeated icons.  Just check whatever positions you want these icons to display at.

Use CSS

CSS, or Cascading Styles Sheets, is what makes your website look the way it does.  Different sites, and different elements on sites, can have different style sheets.  By default, the Sociable stylesheet will be used.  If you uncheck this checkbox, the icon bar will follow the rules of your theme’s style sheet.  Checking or unchecking this will not harm your site, though it may make the icon bar look a bit funny if your theme is not set up to handle it.

Use Text Links

If you would prefer to use text links instead of icons, just check the Use text links without images? checkbox.

Image Directory

If you would like to replace the logo icons used in Sociable, you can do so.  You’ll want to make sure the replacement images have the same name as the ones that come with Sociable, and you’ll need to upload them into your blog site, and then link them through the Image Directory text field.

Use Thickbox/Iframe On Links?

Thickbox or iframe provide a dark, semi-transparent background that surrounds a framed object such as a log-in form, video player, or slideshow viewer.  If you would like for the login forms that are linked to your icon sets to open in Thickbox or an iframe, just check the box provided.  You can also set the dimensions of the frame yourself, if you so choose.

Open in New Window

If selected, the Use target=_blank on links? box will force linked pages or objects to open in a new frame versus leaving your existing page to visit the linked item.

awe.sm

awe.sm is a web-service that shortens the URLs on your site.  This requires an account with awe.sm and an API key.

Disable Blogplay’s Widget from the Dashboard

This disables Blogplay’s widget straight from your Dashboard.

When you’re finished selecting all of your configurations, just click the Save Changes button and click on Visit Your Site to see the changes.

To view help instructions on the Sociable plugin,  just click on the following provided link:

• Sociable Plugin help

You can also locate the specific help post in the Categories menu on this site.

Settings

This group of settings are general settings that provide a few basic filters / features.

• Ignore views by site authors: default = Yes
  • This discounts views that are made by members of the site, which makes sense. You already know that your contributors will be visiting the site. By leaving this value set at Yes, you will receive a more accurate representation of popularity within the general audience.
• Show popularity rank for posts: default = Yes
  • This provides the display of the footer popularity ranking on your posts.
• Show the [?] help link: default = Yes
  • This provides links to help documentation
• Search Engine Domains: default = google.com, yahoo.com, bing.com
  • This helps the plugin filter search engine bots which is good in two ways: it helps show you what search engines are crawling your content and it also helps report on bot activity versus human activity.

Popularity Values

The Popularity Values take all of the different view types that can be associated with your content and performs an aggregated calculation. This provides a way of weighting the results accordingly. For example, Permalink Views from Search Engines should not carry the same amount of weight as Permalink Views from human visitors. This is because the search engine bots crawl your content automatically whereas human views are actual people who are visiting your site, which is really a  more accurate representation of how popular your content really is.

There are several different values that can be weighted differently:

• Permalink Views
• Permalink Views from Search Engines
• Home Views
• Archive Views
• Category Views
• Tag Views
• Feed Views
• Comments
• Pingbacks
• Trackbacks

When a value is set for these items, it is then multipled against the actual number of visits your content has received and then the total of all different views is summed together – this is what provides the ranking.

The default numbers provided should serve as a good start, but you can adjust all of them, if desired.