For those of you thinking of starting a blog, just setting up could seem a bit daunting. New terminology--ping-backs, track-backs, technorati, digg-it, etc. can seem overwhelming too. And then there's writing your articles, posting your articles and managing articles in-progress.

I've found there is nothing really easy about researching the technology, but there are a ton of web-sites and blogs dedicated to understanding these things and the understanding comes with time. At first, I just started posting directly on my blog, which worked and meant I didn't have to learn much new. But as I started writing more articles this didn't prove to be the easiest way of doing things.

Then I discovered that there are tools for writing blog articles off-line on your computer and then publishes them automatically when they have been completed. There are many of these tools, but the one I found that I like the best is Windows Live Writer and can be found here: http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/. It does everything that you will need to do when writing and publishing articles--add categories, keywords, control comments, add you slug (oops, there's another one of those terms again), add your article excerpt or summary, set publishing dates in advance, manage tags, etc.  There are even 5 short (3 minutes or so) videos that walk you through everything from getting started to publishing your first post at the above link. Windows Live Writer even has the capability to manage several blogs at the same time, should you really get into it and have more than one! This is actually convenient for me, as I manage the blogs of several of our clients.

Once you make the decision to start a blog, it becomes addictive. The hardest part is just making up your mind to do it and getting started. So don't put it off any longer, start your blog today!

If you need help getting started, don't hesitate to give me a call.