Category Archives: Basics

Using WordPress

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WordPress contains a couple of main categories of use which may or may not be available to you, depending upon the level of permissions you possess on a given blogsite.

Most obvious is the ability to post and manage content.  Most users who are registered on a WordPress blogsite have the capability to impact content at some level.

If you are a blog owner, though, you are automatically the Administrator of your own blogsite.  This particular role has the ability to not only post content, but to also configure many different site settings and manage users.

We’ll take a look at both the Content and the Configuration group of features within this section.

Basics

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Getting Started

Starting a blog here at blogs.oregonstate.edu is really easy.  Before beginning, you’ll need to know the following things:

Network Identification

To initiate your blog at blogs.oregonstate.edu, a valid ONID is required.

An ONID is used by students, faculty, and staff at OSU to log into the university network.  If you can’t remember your ONID information, the folks at the OSU Computer Helpdesk can give you a hand.  You can call them at x73474, or visit the ONID home page at http://onid.oregonstate.edu.

Where to Go

To start a new blog, you’ll need to go to the home page of blogs.oregonstate.edu at http://blogs.oregonstate.edu.  When you reach the home page, click on the Create a New Blog link.

Registration and Set-Up

To register and set-up for the first time, click the Create a New Blog link.  This link will take you to the WordPress Sign Up page where you will need to complete a short registration form with the following information:

Blog Name – this name actually ends up being part of your URL.  Only lowercase letters and numbers are allowed in this field.  If you enter spaces, punctuation, or capital letters, you will receive an error message requesting a name that contains only lower case letters and/or numbers.

Blog Title field – this is what’s displayed as a title on your blog. You can use mixed case and spaces here.

Privacy option – this determines whether you want your blog to be publicly visible.  Choosing “Yes” publicizes your blog.  Choosing “No” keeps it private.

Blog Category field – select the category your blog will fall under: Student, Student Group, Staff, Faculty, or Department.

After all of your information has been entered, just click the Create Blog button.  You will be redirected to a new screen, informing you that the blog is yours.  To log in to this blog, just click the Login link.

When you log in to your blog for the first time, a Terms of Use and Privacy Policy screen will appear.  Make sure you read these items as they contain important information regarding both the appropriate use of university resources as well as how Central Web Services handles private electronic information.  Click the I Agree button to continue logging into your blog.

Now you’re ready to start personalizing your blog and publishing your material!

Multiple Blogs

As a side note, you can create more than one blog: perhaps you may want one blog dedicated to research on a particular subject, while maintaining a separate, personal blog.

Help

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WordPress is a user friendly blogging application which consists of a clean administrative interface, robust standard features, and handy add-on widgets that serve to increase your writing and reading experience.  Additionally, a WordPress blog also provides its users with the capability to personalize their blogs with a variety of customizable themes.

There are a few WordPress features that you’ll become fairly familiar with as you work within blogs.oregonstate.edu.  Read on through these Help files to discover the different options that are available to you and how to use them.

Import Your Blog!

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How to Import Your Blog
Things to Consider

How to Import Your Blog

WordPress MU allows you to import your existing blogsite into the blogs.oregonstate.edu environment.

To do this, you will need to perform a little bit of preparation work, though.

The first thing to do is to Export your current blogsite into a file that WordPress can upload. We’ll use WordPress 2.6 as a demonstration, but most blog software has similar features.

To Export a Blog from WordPress 2.6

  1. Log into your existing WordPress blog as an Administrator.
  2. Click on the Site Admin link.
  3. Click on the Manage menu item.
  4. Click on the Export menu item.
  5. Choose either All Authors, or restrict an Author from being exported, if you wish.
  6. Click the Download Export File button.
  7. A dialog box will appear.
  8. Click the Save File option.
  9. Click the OK button.
  10. Your WordPress blog will save itself as an xml file.

Import Your File into blogs.oregonstate.edu

  1. Log into blogs.oregonstate.edu.
  2. Click on the Site Admin link in the Meta menu group (lower right corner).
  3. Click on the Manage menu item.
  4. Click on the Import menu item.
  5. Choose the blog system to import from – there are several, we will use WordPress 2.6 for our example.
  6. The Import WordPress screen appears.
  7. Click the Browse button.
  8. The File Upload dialog box appears.
    1. Locate your WordPress file from your computer and select it.
    2. Click the Open button – your file name will autofill in the necessary field.
    3. Click the Upload File and Import button.
  9. The Import WordPress screen opens.
    1. If you have material on your new site already, you can map authors from your old site to your new one with the Map Authors tool. Otherwise, leave it blank.
    2. If your old site contains any file attachments that you would like to include, click the Download and Import File Attachments option.
  10. Click the Submit button
  11. A page of execution steps will appear. If there are no errors in the upload, the words “All Done. Have Fun” will appear at the bottom of the screen.

That’s all there is to it! For troubleshooting tips, check out our next section, Things to Consider.

Things to Consider

When importing an old blogsite to blogs.oregonstate.edu, there are a few things to consider:

Embedded Media

Embedded media can be anything from a picture, to an audio file, or a video file. There are two different ways to embed media. You can either upload a file, such as a picture, up into the WordPress file manager, or you can embed a third party item, such as a YouTube video.

There aren’t any concerns with embedded third-party media from sites such as Flickr or YouTube. There may be issues, though, with embedded media that is linked to a directory in your old site.

After the import, your links should still work, but they will be pointing to a file that is located on your old site’s server. This may not pose an issue, but if (for some reason) the files were removed, the links to your media would break.

There are a few courses of action you could take:

  1. If your media is located at a trusted, reliable source that won’t remove your files you might be all right with leaving your embeds just the way they are.
  2. You can re-upload all of your media to your new blogsite and re-set all of the links. For small blogsites, this might not be a problem. For bigger sites with a large quantity of embeds, this might not be a practical solution.