Navigation:

This contains basic link information for your blog to help viewers return to your blog’s Home page or to link to your blog using an RSS reader. This is also where your Avatar is shown.

Admin:

Add Post – Use this link when you want to add a blog post.
Unpublished Posts – This displays a count of unpublished posts. This occurs as you write posts and save them without having the "publish" checkbox checked.
Categories – this is a link to a page that displays the Categories you have set up for your blogs. Here you are able to add, update, and delete categories.
Blog Settings – This link takes you to an administrative settings page for your blog where you are able to edit settings such as Blog Name, URL-Friendly name, Description, Theme, Contact Email, how to handle Comments, and Pingbacks.
Ping Services – This link takes you to an Administrative Services page where you can add, update, and delete Ping services that should receive notifications when you add new posts to your blog.
Unapproved Comments – If your blog allows for comments and you have moderation set, you will see a count here as you receive comments on your posts. Clicking this link will take you to a page where you can review comments that are cued for moderation where it can approved or deleted.

Blog Search:

This search box allows you to do a word search for the blog you are currently viewing.

Tag Cloud:

As you apply tags to your blog posts, the tag cloud will be populated with all of the tag words your blog uses. Tags that occur more frequently will stand out more by being a larger size. Clicking on a tag word will display posts that are tagged with this tag.

Categories:

When you create a blog post, you assign it to one or several Categories. These categories appear as a list in this view with a count of the number of blog posts in that category. Clicking one of these Categories will open all of the posts within that Category. Usually a blog belongs to a few number Categories but have multiple Tags.

Archives:

This is a listing of your posting activity by date. The number of posts published by month will be displayed here. This gives viewers of your blog a useful way to see what blogs are recent or to go back in history to view earlier blogs.

Login and navigate to your blog by choosing My Blog on the navigation menu in the header. You should see an Admin panel in your blog window with several options. Choose the Blog Settings link.

You will see the following settings form. This is also accessible from the Blog Settings tab of your Profile page.

Blog Info:

Blog: This is simply a display of the link to the root of your Blog. If you want to share your blog with others you would use the URL this link points to.

Blog Title: The Title is displayed in the header region of your blog. Often, just a few words to name your blog or help describe what your blog is about.

Url: By default, this "slug" (or URL friendly name) will be assigned to you. The URL can be changed at any time but this will cause links to your blog to break. Warning: It is advised that if you must change this, that you make the change early on. Using the Extract From Title button will create a unique URL based on your blog's Title. Note: The URL-friendly name cannot have any spaces. Spaces will be replaced with a hyphen if submitted. Example: The name “Basic Blog” (with a space) will result in the URL-friendly name “Basic-Blog” and the URL for this blog would be http://www.myBasicISP.net/blogs/Basic-Blog

Description: This is a short line that helps describe your blog and is often displayed beneath the blog Title in most blog themes. By default this will be shown, if you wish to not show the description simply uncheck the Show description in header check box.

Theme:

All blogs begin with the default theme. We have provided several theme options for you to choose from. Note: this can only be change from accessing the Blog Settings from the blog Admin panel. You will be able to Preview the Theme before saving the settings.

Connections:

Contact Email: By default, this is the email address associated with your MyBasicISP portal login. You can change this to direct blog email, to another email account.

Comments: By default Comments are Disabled. If you wish to allow your blog viewers to post comments to your entries, select either Registered Users Only or Anyone. For instance, “BasicBlog” is targeted for the MyBasicISP community of registered users so Comments are set to Registered User Only. Only those logged in will be allowed to make comments. As the name implies, “Anyone” will allow comments from anybody that reads your blog even if they are not logged in to the MyBasicISP portal.

Moderated: By default, the Moderated box is checked which means you will have to moderate or review all comments made to your postings before the comments are made public. This is also useful to filter out “Comment Spam”.

Pingbacks: These are automated comments sent from one blog to another to indicate when a link to or from your blog has been made. Send will deliver a pingback comment to another blog you reference in your blog. Receive will allow your blog to receive a pingback comment from another blog that references your blog.

Step by step instructions on getting your blog activated.

1) Log in to portal.

Note: Only portal members can create a blog.

2) Click on the My Blog link in the Site Navigation Bar.

Unless you already activated the blog for your account, you will be taken to a Profile tab and be given three options for setting up your blog.

Default Option: This is the easiest and fastest way to begin blogging right away. These settings can be modified at a later time by selecting Blog Settings in the blog Admin panel. This would be the best choice if you are new to blogging.

Custom Option: This option will allow you to modify the settings before creating the blog. This interface is the same as selecting Blog Settings from the blog Admin panel.

Wizard Option: This is a step-by-step wizard with screen shots and tips that will help you make decisions when setting up your blog. This is a good option for someone new to blogging and wants to better understand what the different settings mean.

For more information on blog settings view the Blog Settings Explained post.