Archives for blogging

How do I use Microsoft Word to post to my Classcaster blog?

By Elmer Masters on December 13th 2012

Here are 10 steps you to follow to setup Microsoft Word 2010 so you can use it to post to your Classcaster blog. Once setup, Word 2010 can be used to manage most of the writing of for your Classcaster blog including saving and editing drafts as well as publishing articles. Please note that these steps work for Word 2010 and may not work in any other version of Word.

Launch Microsoft Word 2010
Create a new blog post under “File”, “New”, “Blog Post”. Click “Create” to get started.
First you need to setup an account for the blog you want to post to. Click “Manage Accounts” to add your Classcaster blog information.
In the “Blog Accounts” window select “Other” from the “Choose a blog provider” list. Click “OK”.
In the “New Account” window add your “Blog Post URL”, “User Name”, and “Password”
- The “Blog Post URL” for your blog is http://something.classcaster.net/xmlrpc.php
- “User Name” and “Password” are your CALI username and password, the same as you use to login to Classcaster.
If you have multiple Classcaster blogs, select the blog you want to post to from the “Choose a Blog” list, click “OK”.
At this point you should get a message that lets you know that the account registration was successful.
Now you are ready to use Word to write a blog post. Get started by entering a title for the post, and then the text of your post.
- Please note that while you technically have all of the features of Word 2010 at your disposal, some may not survive the transformation to a blog post. Try to keep things simple.
Once you are finished writing you may add a category to your post by clicking on the “Insert Category” button and then selecting a category from your blog. You may add a new category also.
When you are ready to share your post with the world, click on “Publish” to send your post to your blog. You should see a success message if it went through.

Those are the 10 steps to setting up Microsoft Word 2010 for posting to your blog. Once you’ve completed this initial setup process you can use Word 2010 to manage the writing for your Classcaster blog from idea through publishing.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ Tags: blogging, existing blogs, Microsoft Word

Using Classcaster II: Audio and Podcasting, 12/8/2010

By CALI Admin on July 27th 2012

Filed Under: blogging, podcasting Tags: blogging, classcaster, podcasting, webinar

Using Classcaster I: An Introduction, 11/17/2010

By CALI Admin on July 27th 2012

Filed Under: blogging, general, upgrading Tags: video, webinar

How do I create a static home page for my Classcaster blog?

By CALI Admin on July 18th 2012

Creating a virtual static front page does not require editing or coding of files or templates. Using the default configuration for a “static front page” in WordPress does not remove the sidebar or change the look of the entire site, just the content area.

To create the static front page, go to the WordPress Administration Panels.

Create two WordPress Pages from the “Add New Page” panel. If you will not be using WordPress blogging functionality, you can skip the second page.
- Title the first page “Home” (or another name) as your “static” front page.
  1. Set the “Home” template to the default template or any custom template. Do not title your template home.php as this could cause a conflict.
  2. Add content you would like to see within the content area of the “Home” page.
  3. Publish the Page.
- Title the second page “Blog” (or you could call it “News”, “Articles”, etc.). This page will be a place-holder for showing the Posts on your site.
  1. Do not use a custom Page template for this page! home.php or index.php will be used to generate this page.
  2. DO NOT add content to the Blog Page. Leave it blank. Any content here will be ignored — only the Title is used.
  3. Publish the Page.
Go to Administration > Settings > Reading panel.

Reading panel
1. Set ‘Front page displays:’ to ‘a static page’ and choose the first page you created above for ‘Front page.’ If your WordPress site will contain a blog section, set ‘Posts page’ to the page you created for this above. Otherwise, leave this blank.
2. Save changes.
Enable “Permalinks“ to show the “page title” in the address, since /index.php?p=423 defeats the purpose of making a static front page.

While we are calling this a “static front page,” you can change the content on that web page at any time by editing the Page.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ, general Tags: blog, creating a blog, customizing, home page, themes

Is it possible to create a custom blogging domain for my law school?

By CALI Admin on January 13th 2011

The Domain Mapping plugin for Classcaster allows bloggers to use their own domain name with a Classcaster blog. With a little planning and direction CALI member law schools can use the plugin to create a custom blogging domain for their schools. All you need is a CALI account and the ability to create (or have created) a wild card record in DNS. So here’s what to do:

Login to Classcaster and create a blog (or go to the dashboard for an existing blog).
Click on ‘Tools’ and ‘Domain Mapping’ to open the Domain Mapping page and make a note of the IP address listed there.
Use the IP address from the Domain Mapping page to create a wild card A record in DNS.
1. The record should have the format of *.lawblogs.example.edu or something similar. The only rule is that the first segment of the record be an asterisk.
2. Just like in searching, the asterisk is a wild card. Any address, like blog1.lawblogs.example.edu or myprofsite23.lawblogs.example.edu, will be sent to the IP address in the record.
3. It may take up to 72 hours for changes to your DNS records to be totally distributed across the net, so be patient.
Return to the Domain Mapping page on your blog. Add your custom domain to the form, for example topblog.lawblogs.example.edu, under ‘Custom Domain’ and click the ‘Add’ button to save the changes.
1. Remember that it may take some time for the DNS changes you made in step 3 to take effect, so the new domain name may not work quite yet. That’s OK, because your original classcaster.net will keep on working.
To create more sites in your custom domain there are 2 options. You can create the blogs yourself or you can provide the information to faculty and staff to create blogs themselves.
1. Creating blogs yourself:
  1. Click on ‘Dashboard’ and ‘My Sites’ to get to the My Sites page and follow the ‘Create a new site’ link near the top.
  2. Complete the form to create a new Classcaster blog.
  3. Once created, visit the new blog’s Dashboard and go to ‘Tools’ and ‘Domain Mapping’ to open the Domain Mapping page.
  4. Follow the directions above in step 4 to add the Custom Domain to the blog.
  5. Now you have another blog in your custom domain.
2. Letting others create blogs in your custom domain:
  1. Provide your future bloggers with the Custom Domain you want them to use.
  2. Provide them with information on creating a Classcaster blog and adding a Custom Domain to the blog.
  3. By following these instructions, you will be able to let others create blogs with your Custom Domain.

With some planning you can create a custom blogging domain for your law school. In a future post we’ll take a look at how to setup a home page to track what is going on in your domain.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ Tags: blogging, creating a blog, custom domain, dns

Can I use a custom domain name with my Classcaster blog?

By CALI Admin on October 8th 2010

We understand that not everyone wants or is able to use a classcaster.net domain for their blog. You may already have a domain that you use for a blog you would like to move to Classcaster or your organization may require that all websites and blogs use your organization’s domain name. That’s OK because we have a plugin that you can use to map a custom domain to your Classcaster blog.

Please note that you or someone at your school or organization will need to have access to DNS records to use this plugin.

First you will need to have a Classcaster blog. You can use one that you already have or create a new one and then follow these instructions:

Login to the dashboard of your Classcaster blog.
Go to Tools > Domain Mapping in the menu.
Follow the directions on the page. Mapping domains to Classcaster requires the use of a DNS A record pointing to 184.72.251.64. Please check with your local IT staff if you need help with this.

Now you can access your Classcaster blog from your new custom domain. Remember that it may take up to 72 hours for DNS records to propagate across the Internet. During that time your blog will be available at its Classcaster address.

You can also delete the domain mapping if you want to go back to using the Classcaster domain.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ Tags: blog, classcaster, custom domain, dns, plugins, URL

How do I add authors or editors or other users to my blog?

By CALI Admin on August 29th 2010

Classcaster makes it easy to add additional authors or editors to your blog. Please note that for security reasons we require that everyone who is going to log in to a Classcaster blog have a valid, authorized CALI account. Classcaster uses the same account username and password as the CALI website. Details on getting a CALI account are here.

To add users to your Classcaster blog:

Visit your blog’s homepage and make sure that there is a login link available on the homepage.
1. In the default theme, the login link is under the ‘Misc.’ section in the right hand column.
2. If you are using another theme and there is no login link available on the home page you will need to activate the ‘Meta’ widget as follows:
  1. Go to your blog’s dashboard and click on ‘Appearance’ and then ‘Widgets’.
  2. On the widgets page drag the ‘Meta’ widget from the left into one of the available areas on the right.
  3. This adds the ‘Meta’ widget with a login link to your blog’s homepage.
Once the login link is visible on your homepage, have folks who are going to help with the blog visit your blog’s homepage and login using their CALI username and password. This will associate their account with your blog.
1. Please Note: They should not login to classcaster.net or www.classcaster.net until AFTER they have logged in to your blog or else they will not be associated with your blog.
2. If one or more of your prospective authors already have a Classcaster blog or are associated with another Classcaster blog, this will not work. To add existing Classcaster users to your blog please email their names to emastersATcali.org and Elmer will add them to your blog.
Once they have logged in to your blog or had their accounts associated with your blog their names will appear in your blog’s ‘Users’ list which is visible by clicking on the ‘Users’ link on your dashboard.
To assign a role to a listed user, check the box by their name and select the role you would like to assign from the ‘Change role to’ drop down and click the ‘Change’ button.
1. Available roles and their capabilities are:
  - Administrator – Somebody who has access to all the administration features
  - Editor – Somebody who can publish and manage posts and pages as well as manage other users’ posts, etc.
  - Author – Somebody who can publish and manage their own posts
  - Contributor – Somebody who can write and manage their posts but not publish them
  - Subscriber – Somebody who can only manage their profile
Now when your authors, etc. login in to Classcaster, they will have access to your blog according to the role you have assigned.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ Tags: adding users, blogging, security, users

How do I change the author name that displays in my posts?

By CALI Admin on August 26th 2010

By default Classcaster displays your CALI username as the author name on your posts. For many faculty this username is often your email address. Changing it to display your real name is a good idea and pretty straight forward.

Just login to your dashboard, on the left menu look for the ‘Users’ link, click on it.
Click on ‘Your profile’. On the profile form enter your first and last name.
Find the ‘Display name publicly as’ line and select your name from the drop down list.
On the bottom of the page click the ‘Update profile’ button to save the changes.

Now if you look at your blogs (this changes all your blogs) you will notice that your name shows up instead of your email address at the top of the posts. Updating your profile changes the author field your blogs RSS feeds also, making the feeds easier to find

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ, general Tags: blogging, email address, feeds, RSS, security

How do I add an MP3 file to my post to create a podcast?

By CALI Admin on August 17th 2010

If you want to add an MP3 audio file to a post to create a podcast, Classcaster gives you a couple of options. You may either upload the MP3 file you want to include in the post before you create or edit the post or you may add the file as you are creating or editing the post.In either case, follow these directions:

Go to your blog’s Dashboard and click on ‘Posts’ in the left hand menu.
Select a post to edit or click ‘Add new’ to create a new post.
Edit or add the information for the post.
In the editor place the cursor where you want to add the file link and click on the ‘Add Media’ icon at the top of the editor box.
Either upload a file or select one from your Media Library.
Once a file is selected click on ‘Insert into post’ to add a link to the file into your post. The text of the link will be the title of your file.
This inserts a link to the file at the cursor position. Please be sure that your MP3 file is the first linked file in a post so it gets included in the blog’s feed.
Remember to hit the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to send your post out to your audience.

To add an audio player to your post so visitors can listen to your MP3 file see ‘How do I use the ‘Play It Now’ button with MP3 files I have uploaded?‘.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ, podcasting Tags: blogging, files, media, mp3, podcasting, upload

How do I add categories to my blog?

By CALI Admin on August 16th 2010

Login and go to your blog’s Dashboard and click on ‘Posts’ and ‘Categories’.
Fill out the ‘Add Category’ form. You will need to add at least a ‘Category Name’.
1. Note that you can create a hierarchy of categories by selecting a parent category.
Click on the ‘Add Category’ button to create your new category.

Now when you create a new post or edit an existing one you can assign it to that category. Note that any given post can be assigend to more than one category.

Filed Under: blogging, FAQ Tags: blog, categories, category, existing blogs

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