Jim has pulled me up about my use of long rambling URLs in emails I send him – I confess, it was laziness. I could (and should) have installed Bitly – which is a URL shortener which can be installed as an extension in my browser. I needed to create a Bitly account but having done that it works across my various browsers and also on my iPhone (Android app here). I have done that now – perhaps you’d like to look at it.
Another extension you might want to consider is a development of the bookmark managers (ie diigo, and the now retired Delicious) which allows you to save links to websites to re-visit later, and also read offline. The one I use is Pocket, it’s how I construct the News item for the meetings. I just save pages between meetings and then before a meeting I review them, and cut’n’paste links to this site, and sometimes (when I remember) also to the Flipboard site.
Starting to Blog with WordPress.com
I promised a tutorial on how to setup a WordPress account and create your own website. Here it is. It doesn’t cover writing posts and the like, that is covered elsewhere in the WordPress tutorials, where you could start at Lesson 5, but it does get you to the point when you can begin to be creative. Hope you have some fun!
Step 1 – Go to WordPress.com and click on Start with Free …
Step 2 – The following screen will show …
Step 3 – Click on Get started, and you will be presented with a choice, to setup a WordPress.com account, or create one linked to your Google (Gmail) account. I will do the former …
… and supply an email address (it happens to be a Google one) and then a Password. I will then be asked to supply a Username. A Username can only contain lowercase letters and numbers …
You’ve setup your WordPress.com account – remember those details – UserID and Password (as well as the email address you used).
Step 4 – You are now asked some questions to help set up the website.
I suggest you choose the first option for now …
… and then maybe the last one on the next screen …
… then click on Continue with Free on this last Setup screen …
… before you give your website an address – a URL …
Step 5 – I’m not expecting that you’ll own a domain yourself at this stage, so just click on Continue …
WordPress will then check to see whether it can find a unique URL for you to use. There will be one in the list that is Free – select that one …
… ignore all others. You can see I’m going to grab cardiffu3acg.wordpress.com – which is quite a nice one …
… so I’ll Confirm my choice!
Step 6 – I’ll change the name of the site on the next screen from cardiffu3acg to …
[NB – This website was not created with this URL, it was used purely for demonstration purposes and does not exist.]
That should then be accepted and you’ve got a website. Congratulations! You can then go on to supply a little more information before you start to write your first Post …
… perhaps do the first one which explains a little more what your site is all about, and then start “playing” with the menu bar on the left-hand side of your browser screen …
… or even Add a New Site!