Q. How do I navigate around someone else's blog, or a Group blog?

A. Both types of blogs work in similar ways, once you locate the blog.

On a Group, the blog link will show up in the far left column, if members of the Group have started a blog. On Groups of which you are a member, Edit Blog will show up in the far left column if no one has yet contributed to the Group's blog. Feel free to write something! If there is at least one entry in a Group's blog, it will appear as Blog in the left column. Members will also see Edit Blog.

A personal blog, will show up when you view a person's profile. You can find this by searchig for the person's name in the People menu or search bar and clicking on the photo or link to the person's name. If this person has not started a blog yet, no blog link will appear. The link to an individual's blog will also appear under the name, address, telephone, etc. listing on the profile page.

Viewing Recent Blog Entries:

• For either type, click the Blog link and you will see the most recent postings in the center.
• To read comments, click the Comments link if the number is greater than 0.
• You can make a comment by clicking Add Comment and filling in a title and text where indicated, then clicking Send.
• To read additional recent posts, look to the right of your screen for Recent Posts and click on one that looks interesting. Once you are in this view, you can use next and prev to navigate among postings. In this view, the comment screen appears below each post. If you want to narrow down the number of posts, you can click any category listed at right to only see posts filed under that category. This is especially useful in a busy Group blog, where many topics are discussed.
• Another way to view recent posts is to click on any highlighted day in the calendar on the right of your screen. A highlight means there are posts that day.
• If you click Subscribe, you will see the results of an RSS feed (similar to how one would subscribe to a podcast on iTunes, for example) for the blog, in a more plain text format. In the future, we will use this RSS feed make available email subscription to Community Network blogs, password protected.

Searching

• To search by date, click on any highlighted day in the calendar on the right of your screen. A highlight means there are posts that day.
• To search by category, click any category listing in the right side menu, or beneath a post.
• To search for a particular word, use the search box beneath the calendar. It will take you to the first post with your word in it.

Archives:

• Click the archives link in the left column under Blog to browse through a month-by-month listing of the contributions to any blog.
• Again, you can narrow down the number of posts by clicking a particular category of interest.

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