ChristianBlogSites.com Blog
UserGuide
Have you checked out our
Knowledge
Base/FAQ Section? If you type in
a question and we don't have an answer, we will be notified and post an answer.
GETTING STARTED TIPS. Click here for Getting Started Tips.
E-MAIL FROM CHRISTIANBLOGSITES.COM
It is critical that you make sure your e-mail program is set up to receive e-mail from the christianblogsites.com domain. Otherwise you may not be able to activate your account or receive important e-mail.
Most of our e-mail is sent out bcc and most filter programs will delete this type of e-mail. We send out e-mail this way to protect your e-mail address.
How do I create a blog?
Go to
www.christianblogsites.com/blog
and click on the Register link. You will be taken through a four step
registration process. Upon registration you will receive an e-mail notification
that has a link for you to click on to activate your account. Once your account
is activated, if you desire, you can change your blog template by going to Admin
Control Centre then Blog Settings.
I can't find my blog anywhere
Once you register you will receive an e-mail notification that has a link for
you to click on to activate your account. If you entered a bad or wrong e-mail
address, you will not be able to activate your blog site. You will need to
register again with a valid e-mail address.
What is my blog web address?
Your blog web address (URL) is going to be in the following format:
http://username.christianblogsites.com/blog
Replace username with your username (not your blog name).
Is there a spell checker?
No, there is not a built in spell checker, but here is an excellent,
easy to use, easy to install program that works great:
www.iespell.com
Once it is installed, whenever your mouse is
inserted in a form field, right click, and you can spell check.
Where is the page that show all the blog sites
and postings of other blogs?
This is called the Summary Page. it is located at:
http://www.christianblogsites.com/blog
If you go to this page on a regular basis, we
recommend putting a link to it on your blog homepage.
Getting Started
Here are the steps you should take when you first activate a blog. There
are instructions below and in our Knowledge Base/FAQ Section on how to implement
each step.
You first log into your blog Admin Control Panel:
1. On the Summary page enter your username and password. If on your blog, click Admin and then enter your username and password.
2. You will see your Dashboard. Click on your Blog Name and you will see your Admin Control Panel
1. Delete the Congratulations post. But before you do this, create new
categories and then a new post, otherwise there will be an error message on your
blog.
2. Create New Categories under the 'Manage' tab.. Change the name of the
'General' category if you want it to be a different name.
3. Enter info about your blog in the Blog Settings under the Control Centre section of the Admin Control Panel.
4. Enter
info about yourself in the 'Bio' section of User Settings under the Control
Centre section of the Admin Control Panel.
5. Create a Photo Album in Resource Section and add
a photo of yourself if you are using a template that inserts a photo of yourself
on the blog header.
6. Add links to your blog homepage.
7. Activate the various Plug-ins that we offer.
8. If you would like to use a different template, go to Control Centre, 'Blog Setting' and choose a different template. If you would like a customized template, have a
personal homepage, have a unique domain to forward to your blog, or any other
design work, contact us
for a quote. Our pricing is very affordable.
ADMINISTRATION CONTROL PANEL INFORMATION
The Administration Control Panel is where you post messages and have full control of your blog.
How do I get to the Admin panel and Control
Centre?
There are two ways to access the Control Panel:
a. If you are at the www.christianblogsites.com/blog Summary page, there is a log-in screen on the left column.
b. If you are at your personal blog, click the Admin link on your blog site and log-in.
Log in by entering your username and password
Once logged in, you are in the Dashboard. Click your blog name and you will have full access to
the Admin Control Panel. You will immediately be taken to the 'New Post' page.
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MANAGE TAB How to Manage Posts
New Post Tab
When you click on this link, it may take a few
seconds for the page to load completely, do not try to post a message until the page
loads completely.
Topic title is the title for your posts. Your title should not be longer than 20
characters.
Skip the submitted by and submitter e-mail if it
appears on your screen. This is only applicable if you are using the
submission plug-in.Enter your post in the
Text section. There are a variety of text editing tools
available.
If your post is going to be more than a couple of
paragraphs, we suggest that you enter the additional data in the
Extended
Text section.
Slug feature-this gives you the ability to make the
post url unique and shorter if desired. Go to
FAQ's for more info on this
feature.
Date If you want to create a post and have it post at a later
date, you can use this feature.
Status-Choose what status you want for the
post.
Categories-Choose what category you want your post to appear in.
Enable comments-check if you want to allow others to comment
on your post
Notification of new comments-check this if you want to be
notified when a comment is made to your posts.
Send trackbacks
Send XMLRPC pings
Your last step is to decide if you want to:
Save Draft (Save this post to work on later
Preview (See how your post will look)
Blot This-Make your post live.
Posts Tab
By clicking this link you can read, edit, delete, or review
statistics for each post.
CM-This lets you know how many comments have been made on
this post.
TB-Lets you know how many trackbacks have been made on this
post. Trackbacks are links to your post from other blogs.
Click on the post title or edit
icon to edit an existing post.
Click on the delete icon
to delete a post. (Deleted posts will not appear in your blog, but
they are not immediately removed from your admin panel.
Click on the Statistics
icon to get statistics on your post.
Categories Tab
Your article categories will be listed on this page.
You may edit the
category name by clicking on the edit icon
.
Delete a category by clicking on the delete
icon.
Show on Front Page-When you go into the
edit mode you can decide if you want posts in this category to show
up on the front page of blog.
New Category Tab
Your article category
name should not be more than 20 characters so it is only one line long. After you create a Article Category, you can edit
it by going to Categories Tab.
(Note: When a blog is first created it
automatically has a General Category. You can rename this category
to whatever you want by clicking on the edit icon for the 'General'
Category).
Comments
Under the comments tab you can manage comments on your blog. You can approve or delete comments. You can also mark a comment as spam. This will notify the CBS system and will help block these type of comments in the future. If there is a comment that is spam you can document its IP address and put it under the Host Blocking anti-spam feature. You must activate your site to receive comments. This is done under blog settings in the Control Centre.
Trackbacks
Trackbacks are links to specific articles in other blogs. So a visitor who has a blog can post a trackback link (also called permalink) and put it on a comment. You can choose to delete his trackback.
Unmoderated Comments
This is where all comments that are posted on your blog are located untile they are approved by you. Once they are approved, they will go under the Comment section. You can delete any unmoderated comments and can mark them as spam.
Submission
This is a plug-in feature which allows individuals to
'Submit a story' to your blog. (There is a link on your blog
homepage.) The
submission goes into moderation mode for you to review before it is posted. You must activate this plug in for it to work. The submissions will be under the post category.
When there is a submission, you can click on it,
review it, and decide if you want the submitted by and
submitter e-mail shown, and decide if you want to post it on
your blog. |
How to Manage Links
New Link
Click this tab to create a new link. Before you create a link you must create a New
Link Category if you do not have an existing link category.
Name-Enter the name you want for this link. It
should not be more than 20 characters.
Url-Enter the webpage address of the link.
Be sure to start it with http://
Description-Enter a description for this link. It is only
seen by you.
Feed-?
Category-Choose a category for this link.
Be sure to click Add when you are done.
Links
You can edit or delete a link
New Link Category
Your link category name should not be more than 20 characters. After you create a Link Category, you can then
create a link by clicking on Links Tab.
Link Categories
You can edit the name of a category or delete it.
Note: You can decide how you want your link
categories organized by going into the Control Centre. |
Manage Custom Fields
This section normally only applies to
Plug-Ins. If you activate a Plug-In that would require data to be
inserted in a post, then there may be additional fields added
automatically. The Submissions plug-in is an example.
New Custom Fields
If there is another field you would like to add to your posts,
you would create it here.Custom Fields |
Crystal Poll
If you would like to take a poll (survey) on your blog, then use this feature. Your poll will appear just below your header on your main page and on your posts page. (Poll will not appear on the posts page of Falling Leaves template). You can only do one poll at a time.
New Poll
Write your poll question. Click on 'Add Choice' to add each answer you want. Click 'Add' when done.
Edit Poll
Once you have created a poll you can edit it and/or see poll statistics, or delete the poll.
Poll Settings
Choose which poll you would like to show up on your blog. Choose what color you want the bar to be that shows how many votes you have. Click 'Update' when done. |
Manage Blog Security
There are some plug-ins that help to eliminate
spamming of your blog site. Blocked Hosts is one type of plug-in. You
can blog specifically IP's addresses from posting and/or viewing your
site. If you are having problems with spam comments, just copy their IP address and then use this feature.
Blocked Hosts
This will list any IP addresses you have chosen to block.
Add Blocked Hosts
This is where you would add IP addresses you want to block. This
section is self-explanatory. |
RESOURCE CENTRE-PHOTOS TAB
New Resource
Before you can add a New Resource you must
create an album (see below).
File-Browse your
hard drive to upload an image from your computer. You need to edit
this image before you upload it.
Description-Enter a description, others
will see this description.
Album-Select which album you want this
image to appear in.
New Album
Name-This name appears to others and should be
very short.
Parent-You can decide if you want sub
albums. For example you could have an album titled Vacations and a
sub album titled Hawaii. The Vacations album would be the parent of
Hawaii album.
Description-This description appears only
to you.
Show-Be sure to check Show if you want the album accessible to the public.
Add-Be sure to click add when done.
Resources
Show By-Choose if you want albums shown by parent album
or my sub albums.
Album Folder-Click on an album folder to
see what images are in the the folder. You can edit an album to add
more images or delete an album. You must delete all images before
you can delete an album.
Number of resources: This tells you how
many images you have.
Total size: The total file size of all images.
Quota:
How much total disk space you are allowed. |
CONTROL CENTRE TAB
The Control Centre is where manage blog and user settings, access
detailed site statistics, and activate many plug-ins.
Settings
Blog Settings
Modify blog name, template, and other settings. Choose to allow or disallow comments on your blog.
Blog time
The server that your blog is hosted on is Eastern Time. If you want to change the default time for your blog, on the bottom is an option to change your time. It is called Time Offset.
Pacific is -3, Mountain is -2, Central is -1.
User Settings
To modify personal information including password, bio, blog picture.
Plugin Centre
This will list any plug-ins you have installed. Info on Plug-Ins.
Statistics
This will provide statistics on your blog.
Moblog
This is a plug-in to allow blogging using various devices. |
Blog Users
New Blog User
If you want to allow others to
access Control Panel to post blogs. This is a great feature if
you are running a blog community.
Blog Users
List of blog users. |
Blog Templates
Anti Spam Management
AuthImage
To help stop auto spammers from posting comments to your
site, you can activate this plug-in. Before a comment can be
posted to your site, a code must be entered first. (This feature is currently turned off-no need for it.
DNS Anti Spam
Validate Trackbacks |
Integration Management
Twitter
More information on this when it is fully functional. Currently if you have a twitter account, you can put your Twitter username and password and whenever you post a link to it will show up on your Twitter account. Sign up for Twitter. |
Manage Security Plugins
Host Block
With this plug-in turned on, you can block specific IP addresses from accessing your blog. Go to 'Manage' tab to use this plug-in.
Secret Blog
If you do not want your blog to be viewed publicly, you can turn on this feature and enter a unique password that would be given out only to those who you want to be able to view or comment on your blog. Make sure the password is different than your blog password.
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Appearance Management
AddThis
AddThis is a plug-in that allows visitors to your blog to do several things your posts/articles. They can e-mail, print, send to Facebook, and many other serivces. Before you can install this plug-in you must register with AddThis service at www.addthis.com. You can then activate AddThis. Once you have your AddThis account name, enter it into the account field of this plug-in. You will then see the following image with each of your articles on your blog. 
Gravatars
A gravatar is an image that is linked to an e-mail address that has been registered with Gravatar. So if a person has a gravatar registered and posts a comment on your blog using their e-mail address, their gravatar will show.
If a person or you comments on your blog and you or they do not use their e-mail address, you can choose which image (gravatar) shows up next to their comment if the user does not have their own gravatar. The avatar will only be 30x30 regardless of the size of the sample avatar.
(Note: If you or a CBS blogger have an image in your User Settings, then your or their image will show up if you are logged into your blog and you or they comment on yours or another CBS blog.
Remember Comments Data
To make it quicker for commenters to make comments. As a return visitor types in the info it
will remember the data they have typed in the past.
Smileys
This plug-in gives the ability to allow commenters to use
Smileys in their posts. (Not functional at this time) |
Recent Comments
Recent Comments Plugin
If you would like to have a portion of the most recent comments listed on your blog, then activate this plugin. It will insert comments (around the first 40 characters) into the left or right column of your blog (based upon the template you are using).
Select how many comments you want to show up on your blog.
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What are Plug-Ins?
Plug-Ins are special features that can be used with your blog. They are not
standard features because some individuals may not want them on their site. To
see a list of plug-ins that are available, take the following steps:
1. Log into Admin.
2. Click on your Blog Name while in Dashboard.
3. Go to Control Centre.
4. Click on Plug-In Centre link.
5. There will be a description of various plug-ins.
6. Most plug-ins are listed within Control Centre.
7. Click on the link of a plug-in you want to activate.
How do I edit About Me page
If your template has a page for your biography, here are the steps to
edit that page:
1. Log into Admin
2. Click on your Blog Name
3. Go to Control Centre
4. Go to User Settings
5. Go to your Bio.
6. Enter your information.
7. If you want something more sophisticated, e-mail webmaster with what you want
and he will give you a quote for customized About Me page.
How do I add a AboutMe Photo?
You must first log into Admin Control Panel by
clicking Admin link on your blog site. You then click on your Blog Name, then
click on Resource Centre tab. If you have not created an album yet, do this firstclick on the
New Album link. Once you have created an album you can then add photos to the
album, by clicking on New Resource link.
Once you have added a photo of yourself or whatever you want to appear in th AboutMe section, go to User Settings under Control Centre.
(
The image should be around 99px in height or less.)
Once in Control Centre click on User Setttings.
On the right column is a place to choose your Bio Picture.
Still Have Problems?
Go to our KnowledgeBase/FAQ Section. If you then still have problems, contact New Technologies Support to Submit a Ticket.