Putting blogs up on the Web

Mood: Sleepy

Lori, our adviser, has asked me to put blogs on our Web site. Since I don't have a page to work on this semester, this was going to be tonight's task.

Filip, co-photo editor, suggested me to use Google gadgets to do this. The only problem: I didn't know what Google gadget was or how to use it.

Laugh at me all you want; I'm the Web editor of our student publication and I didn't know how to use a Google gadget until today. Go ahead and laugh.

But just because I was clueless, it didn't mean that I was not going to learn.

So Filip first helped me search for the right gadget on Google. We decided to use this. Everything seemed dandy and smooth, until we faced one tiny problem: we didn't know how to put more than one URL on the FEED URL.

We pondered and tried different things, but we could not work it out.

Then Filip suggested me to contact Rich Cameron, Talon Marks adviser at Cerriots College, since he has helped us with Web stuff before.

Since I'm his "friend" on Facebook (yes, i used Facebook to get hold of a professor), I messaged him with few questions.

Almost instantly, he sends me a message back with THE solution: to use Feedweaver.

And just like that, we put everyone's blogs' RSS on our Feedweaver account, and use that URL on the Google gadget.

The blogs were now up on the Web. Yes!

The next challenge was to place the gadget on the right side of our front page, right under our "Most Commented." Once again I sent a message to Rich.

This time he recommended to use College Publisher's "new project" and page layout options to place it.
Finally, the widget was there, exactly where I needed to be.

The lesson is that it is always good to ask questions.

In addition, Rich wrote about EC's Web site and me on his blog. I felt smarter, and it didn't hurt that I was mentioned :]